YONDER BREAKS

A few weeks ago, all I wanted to do was surf. It had been a while, but a friend invited me out and so the prospect was there. A couple contingencies blocked my path though: my oldest daughter needed to be napping and my youngest needed to stay quiet while she was napping. As my wife and I rocked our youngest to sleep, watching another episode of  Fixer Upper , I kept a keen eye on the clock, knowing my friend was paddling out at 4pm and that it was already past 3. Unfortunately, the television could not drown out the sound of  both  my daughters crying as the sweet possibility of surfing was slipping away before my eyes. I tried hard to not let my hopes get up for a surf session. When that was becoming less possible, I tried hard to let go of those hopes. But I found myself doing anything but. Downright anxious, all I wanted was for the kids to be quiet so I had a good excuse to go surfing. It was consuming me, making me angry, ir...

I've been writing songs for about 15 years now, but haven't done a lot of sharing them outside of the  awesome punk band  I was in in high school. Well, I'm 30 now so I figured it's long past time to start putting it out there! Here's the first in what will be many songs, videos and albums I hope to share on this blog! -- I write a lot of songs in pieces, while driving or doing chores around the apartment, I'll record verses and choruses on my phone as I think of them, and later put them to music. This song actually came about when, while driving home from work one day, I felt like God told me, "If you  let go  of your creative pursuits, I'll show you who you really are." It was kind of out of the blue, but hit me like a freight train. I immediately resisted, as my entire reason for uprooting my life and relocating to the west coast was the follow dreams of working in the film industry. That's changed over time, but my pursuit of a creat...

How would you like to know what you're here to do, life's purpose? I think a big part of that is wrapped up in learning your identity. It's a big topic, bigger than just this blog post, but to start read  Genesis 17  (it's short), the account where God changes Abram's name to Abraham. In summary, God tells Abram he will make him the father of many, despite being 99 years old, and changes his name to commemorate it (Abram means "exalted father," and Abraham means "father of many").  But "Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, 'Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?'" (Genesis 17:17). That's interesting...not sure I'd laugh if God told me something like that. Anyway, God also gives Abraham a stipulation for the promise: every male in his household must be circumcised. Oh...um...okay. The bible then says: "On that very day Abraham took his...

Over a year ago, while taking my infant daughter on stroller walks, I noticed a few good skate spots by our place; and so I thought it'd be fun to bring a camera and start shooting some skateboarding. I grew up making  skate videos , and so it breathed new life into my skating to be shooting again (it had been a couple years since  the last one ). Taking my daughter also made for great father-daughter time. Soon after, while driving around looking for new skate spots, I happened across a  fenced-in skatepark  with an 18-and-over-only session in the middle of every weekday -- it was perfect -- I could take my daughter in her carrier/pack-and-play, and skate knowing she was safe (I always had the skatepark to myself because all the normal adults work in the middle of the day). Pretty soon the idea to make a Skater Dad video started forming, and I made it a goal to shoot a new trick every skate session. This is when things got difficult. On my birthday I asked my...