When to Say When?

Just a thought or two I have pondered in this season of change for me.
As one looks to move on to whats next at what point is it time to lay that dream aside and move on to whats next or is there a point where you become defiant of what you should be doing next and instead postponing God's plan for you?
I mean Louis La'Mour, the famous western novelist, submitted his novels 350 times and was denied the opprotunity to have his stories published. Should he have given up? Would I have given up? But he tried once more and 351 was the magic number. Now his novels are known worldwide.
So I ask again is there a point where clarity or lack thereof lends itself to persist after a dream or perhaps just to be still?
Please feel free to share your thoughts......Until Dukey Drops Again.......Much Love...............

Kansas City Royals...Royally Pathetic...Jayhawks winning

...Right now the Kansas City Royals are on pace to have the worst team they have ever had. Radio stations in the KC area are boasting "We have more hits than the Royals" and then retracting that statement continuing saying, "...wait thats not many".That in itself needs a little background. Lets just say the Royals could break two records this year. One for most losses ever in a single season in Major League Baseball and if they do that they will secure the second record of having the worst terrible losing streak in baseball history by losing over 100 games in four consecutive seasons. Right now it is not even a debate who is the worst team in baseball, there's the Royals boasting a .229 winning percentage and then everyone else. The Roylas already have had 13-game and 11-game losing streaks at this pint in the season. 48 games into the season they are already 23 games behind thier division leader Detroit who is playing some great baseball and is leading the league in winning percentage at .700.My question is can the Royals finish over 50 games behind? Can it be done, right now I think it might be very possible. To win 50 games would be a good season at this point. Word is that some needed changes are taking place at the top with a potential new GM to be hired but the Royals are a long way from thier winning ways of the past(80's-early 90's). Check these links out... http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=92711
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/14684842.htm


The lone bright spot right now in Kansas baseball is exactally that....Kansas Baseball. The Kansas Jayhawks are headed to the National Tourney by winning the Big XII baseball tourney title beating 3 of the top 16 teams in the nation to become the Big XII Champs. Go Hawks!

Graduation is around the corner...May 13th at 10am

Invisible Children and the Global Night Commute(april 29th) went great! We had around 200 show up for the screenings and we had 80 people walk to Felten Middle School(pic above) and sleep on the field between the rainsoaked grass and 40 degree temperatures. It was a bit(very) chilly but none the less a great time and a good experience. Everyone had an opportunity to write letters to our president, congressmen and senators. Not bad for having about 25days to throw things together. We had a lot of awesome help...believe me...it had to be there or I either wouldn't have been graduating or it wouldn't have happened. I was very pleased with the response!
Just a sidenote but the filmmakers were on Oprah the wednesday before the Global Night Commute talking about the Invisible Children movement! That was cool to see!

The big news now is that graduation is this saturday! Its TRUE...I will be GRADUATING with a degree in Organizational Leadership...Finally! Its gonna be great to be moving on to the next step in my life. Phil3:12-14 has been a verse that has really been catching my attention...Check it out if you have a chance. I personally have focused on the first two verses not that the third one is a sad excuse for a verse but thats just where my focus has been.
Well thats it for now....Until Dukey Drops again....Much Love....

Invisible Children Movement & Global Night Commute

Invisible Children is something right now that has inspired me to great lengths and I and many others are doing what we can to see that Hays and Western Kansas knows about it and has a chance to be apart of something that could stop and war and change the history of N. Uganda. We've only had 4 weeks at best but we are doing what we can to make some noise from lesser populated side of Kansas. Its been exciting thus far and we'll see what the resluts are. I hope people are aware of the rare opportunity that stands before them and take full advantage by joining in the movement.

April 27th we will have a screening of the full length DVD at 7pm in the Fort Hays Ballroom
April 28th we may have another screening TBA
April 29th the Global Night Commute takes place all over the world but here in Hays it takes place at Felten Middle School at the track

Americans are closing their eyes to open the worlds’ to an unseen war.
By lying down, we are joining the invisible children in northern Uganda, and demanding that our government put an end to the longest running war in africa, and one of the worst crises in the world today.

FACTS:
--Northern Uganda called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today because of the lack of attention
--1.7 million people forcibly displaced
--AN estimated 20- 50,000 children abducted to fight as soldiers
--tens of thousands of children commuting nightly
--130 people die per day in Northern Uganda due to violence

Take a look at these links.

www.invisiblechildren.com

The response from Washington D.C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBZunv9kgd0

Local info for the Hays Area
www.invisiblechildrenhays.com

I have got to get off here if I want to graduate...
Until Dukey drops again......Much Love.....

Africa...Invisible Children

This quote is from the story of the Invisible Children...

"Once one has been to these challenging terrible places they're always strangely drawn back...because there's nothing that can compare to seeing the raw reality of the basic human need for survival. It disgusts and inspires." -Dan Eldon

Any thoughts? Curious?
Check out the link to the right...
Until Dukey Drops again...Much Love...

The Madness of March

As the snow begins to melt from a snow storm that came through a few days ago after many 60-70 degree "winter" days we find ourselves officially in spring. Every year around this time there are favorites and there are cinderellas among college basketballs best teams. Everyone attempts to guess who will be the Final Four and who will be the cinderella team. There are upsets that destroy your bracket and there are teams that defy their seed. My Final Four included Kansas, Texas, Uconn and Florida. Kansas sadly was that team for me that I was counting on. They ran into the MVC buzzsaw Bradley Braves. Bradley almost didn't make the tourney and they made the most of their opportunity knocking of #4 seeded KU and #5 seeded Pitt.
The biggest news now in the state is that of the Wichita State Shockers who play another seed-defying team the Colonials of Goerge Mason tonight. Both teams have an opportunity to do what many teams would almost die for, a chance to make the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament. After both teams have been knocking off higher seeded teams they have a rematch of a game earlier in the season where George Mason won by three 70-67 and they are favored to win again. It should be fun to watch.
Ok so after I posted this Wichita St. went on to lose to George Mason in what was not the best game for the Shockers who looked slow and just not on their "A" game. They were still fun to root for.
Other big news in this area is the Kansas State signing of Men's head basketball coach Bob Huggins former coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats. Kansas State I believe took a huge step toward seeing success with their Men's basketball....unfortunately.
Fort Hays State Men's basketball won their first game of the North Central regional but dropped their second to eventual DII National Champ Winona St. They ended a great season 27-4.
Coming into this the tourney everyone had expectations of a certian team or maybe of a conference. Oddly enough this made me think of the expectations we have of one another whether in a friendship or dating relationship. I'm not going to speak toward marriage because as most of you know I have no experience in that area but this is
very relevant to it.
So often we have unrealistic and very idealistic expectations of one another and this often causes problems. Granted they are good to have and help us push each other to greater things but in the event that someone doesn't meet those expectations I believe we should be honest with ourselves and see if we were perhaps a bit unrealistic. Whether we were a bit over zealous in our ideals or we weren't we should be able to let it go and not hold a grudge toward that person because they didn't meet our lofty bar.
I believe it is really important that those expectations are discussed early on in a dating relationship so that as it progresses you are aware and be open to any modifications too. The vital part in discussing these is that you yourself are able to listen to the other person and find if they feel that you do have unrealistic expectations. You also need to be honest with yourself if you are in a cosmic world of your own in the making of the mold that your friend or date needs to fit into. If your horizontal relationships around you are really out of whack and messed up it is very likely that your vertical relationship is imapcted too.
Anyway just some thoughts I had...Until Dukey drops again....Much love....

Skiing...highs and lows

Last week I drove to Rock Springs, WY to meet up with my parents to go to Park City, UT and go skiing with my old man, pops and daddio. We went to The Canyons in Park City and had a great time. The sun was shining and it was quite warm as you can tell from the picture. I chose not to wear a hat, hair, and forgot sunscreen. The results speak for themselves. Today I started peeling. Its all good though. We had a great time on the mountian. The snow and the weather were both excellent!
It was fun to laugh at my dad and he had a few chances to laugh at me. We made some jokes on the camcorder..."dad are those your panties in the tree!!?!!" LOL! We trekked across unknown territory and just brought about more laughs. We just plain and simple had a good time.
One of the times when dad did nothing but laugh was when we were headed across an open area of unskiied territory. I got up to the run we were trying to find...dad showed up later because he lost his pole in the snow...and I stood at the incline on the edge of the run checking things out and I began to slide backwards. The back of my skis dug in and I fell over backwards burring my left shoulder and my backpack two feet into the snow. It was just the sight dad needed as he skiied over to me. He demanded the camera while he laughed. He paid me $20 and he got the camera. So thats what I'm doing on my back. Just kidding about the $20. We went in to Salt Lake City one night and ate at a Brazilian place where they come around and cut off hunks of freshly roasted chicken, turkey, elk, pork tenderloin, etc. off of big skewers. It reminded me very much of Carnivore in Nairobi. Then the second night we messed around in Park City and headed home. It was also good to hear of the cool things that God is doing in the lives of those apart of their ministry in Rock Springs. Is. 40:28-31
It was awesome to enjoy the beauty of the moutians and hang with a pretty cool guy too. He's not quite the risk taker he used to be 10 or 20 years ago but I won't be the one to spoil the fact that he's not 18 anymore. It more fun to think that you are and will be for a long time...so next time take that 20 foot jump in the terrain park instead of looking at it. You may never live to get another chance to take it. Of course you may not live to tell about it either but the people watching will pass on the legend of the "Flyin' White Weasel".
While I was on the road the Fort Hays Tigers dropped one out of two games in the conference tourney and fell from #1 in the region to #2 and lost the chance to host the regional. It is sad because I was making plans for my smooth canvas of a head to show some school spirit. So many students are too concerned with looking cool and are too scared to show a little passion and excitement and have some fun...I'm not gonna get started. Anyway we dropped to #5 (26-3)in the Nation(Div. II) but that doesn't matter now. The fellas have got to go out and win. The girls didn't do so well and ended a great season at 21-7.
Well thats it for today as another beautiful early March day ends...Until Dukey drops again....Much love....

Sold Out!

FHSU Tiger Basketball had a big weekend in some ways and others not so much. The Tiger Men's team has been ranked #1 in Div II for a few weeks now and came in to Sundays game against Nebraksa-Kearney 25-1 and 18-0 in the RMAC. Sundays game was the first in school history to sell out in advance. The official attendance was 7,187. The place was packed and loud!!! It was awesome to see over 6,000 already there for the start of the womens game. The Lady Tigers(21-6) deserve a big loud crowd. They played well and beat the Loper ladies 60-52. The guys had established a 31 game home winning streak and had won 18 straight games. The men just had a tough time getting shots to fall. Free throw and 3 point shots were not dropping as the Tigers shot 55%(12/22) from the freethrow line and 17%(4/23) from 3-point range. Still they battled but in the end we all went home disappointed with a 70-66 loss to our bitterly disliked rival Nebraska-Kearney. The conference tourney starts on wednesday and continues on the weekend as the guys are the #1 seed and the women are the #3 seed. The women have got to possibly win the conference tourney or make it to the championship game to have a shot at making the national tourney as their region is very strong. The guys will have a NCAA DivII tourney bid locked up and should host the regional being #1 ranked in our region. Should be a lot of fun. Hopefully they will rebound from this loss and realize they have got to play better because now it becomes one and done for the season. I'll continue to enjoy rooting for the Tigers as long as the ride lasts.
Speaking of fun, this wednesday I am leaving for Park City, UT as my dad and I are going to go skiing Thursday and Friday at The Canyons www.thecanyons.com one of the top 15 best places to ski in North America. I am really excited! It will surely be a lot of fun. Its been a long while since pops and I have just kicked it so that will be really cool. I'm sure I'll have some good pics from the trip.
Thanks for your prayers for my mom as she had surgery about 4 or 5 weeks ago. Its been a kind of slow process as healing from surgery is but she is doing better and getting healed up. She had a bit of cabin fever but is back on her feet and getting in to a routine again. So thank you to you all...all 3 of you who read this. HA!
Monday nights I have a bible study and we are reading a book by John Piper called "When I Don't Desire God:How to fight for Joy" and I think its going well. If you haven't read Piper before he can be quite philisophical and I can't say it has been real smooth all the time for us all but tonight was really good. We talked about how joy is a gift and it is ultimately a gift that stems from God's grace and love for us. God's grace just is humanly very difficult to comprehend. (Eph.2:4-5,8-9) Why does He still love and pursue us when we repeatedly do stuff wrong and hurt our relationship? (Rom.7:13-23) I have no clue why in human reason to be justify or make sense of it. Thats love. We also talked about how we rank sins. In our eyes murder, adultery, rape, and homosexuality are among the "worst" but in God's eyes even though the bible says those things are wrong our "small" sins of gossip, lies or lusting are equal because they are sin. So if God loves us the same no matter our sin why the heck can't we love others whether they are homosexual or not. We should exhibit the same grace and love God gives us to others. Good stuff. Gotta be Sold out!
For those who may be wondering I will not be going overseas this summer. I know its became a trend for the last 3years but I am stateside this summer. I've got my sisters wedding on July 8th to celebrate and I know that God has got other plans for me this summer only not in Kenya. It is possible I could return there because I would most definitely like too for a longer period of time but thats down the road a bit. I am trying to search and see what this summer and next fall will bring aside from the knowns that I'm graduating on May 13th and my sister is getting married on July 8th.
Well I think thats it for now.....Until Dukey drops again....Much Love..........