The Whale

Around three months ago what some would consider the impossible happen. I sold my beloved STi project. It was a truly great time spent modifying and researching that car and the end result was just an impeccable pice of automotive art. However there was one thing missing, the fact that sustainability, ease of use, and consistency are all equally important values in the equation of building a car that satisfies the beauty of driving, the art of design, and the purpose of logical refinement filtered through a great platform to make what's good ever personally better. Retrospectively the STi became everything I wanted it to be, a gorgeous, reliable, usable, and faster version of what Subaru already gave us, and with that accomplished it was time for it to go to a new home and fulfill its use. I guess I just see the issue like this; I was given the ability and means and connections to build it but not the means to use it. So why be trite and feel entitled to race it or tear down a great car when a deeper look can show you that all a car is really good for is the experience of beauty and the people you meet. So I was able to reconnect with a friend and intentionally bless him with my art and given ability. Hopefully he'll experience just as much and more while he owns it. So now all I needed was something to drive.

Moving into the major narrative; how does one fight automotive monomania? WIth a shining white whale. If ever their was such a ghostly representation of the pale behemoth, that muscular ghost of bone and sinew it would live in the slinging echo of the boxer motivating my white wagon in wakes of wallowing traffic. I dare say it may be the best car I've ever driven, and I didn't even build it, loe my pride. Authorities turn their eyes, Porsches can't catch it, my family is ever safe in it, and it's interior consumes antiques large enough to make even, well, a whale proud. Yes I do indeed love the 2002 Subaru WRX Wagon that now lives in our drive and for once I own a vehicle that has no agenda of modification. To produce one has just been a slap at how good it is. Overtime it will receive a subtle mixture of refinement and personalization but I'm striving to make this one a permanent horse in the stable, maybe even one for the kids down the line. For now in prayer and petition I hope to use the wagon to connect with as many people as possible, build those relationships, and hopefully even help out in our community; all the while braving the traffic with my lovely wife Ashley and our coming daughter Zoey.

It's Just A House Burning, But It's Not Haunted

Whenever I feel a bit restless I find the best cure to the heart to be automotive wanderings into the city. Taking these on occasion I have more less unintentionally developed a mental catalogue of moving architecture; for nothing else can snap the wandering mind into alertness as the beauty of a home graceful and well designed. Favoring the desolate, I love to pass by the abandoned homes of prestige that the city has left, perhaps for no other reason than the chance one might have taken up the unlikely task of restoring one. Finding quite the opposite, one such house that had truly impressed me before I found hulking about after being set afire. In such situations a kind of parallel state is created; with the house essentially segmented between the realities of its creation and grandeur, present misery, and eminent destruction, and obviously all that can be done is to capture the flickering remainder before its falls back to the earth. This then is my business; a photographer, a dealer of the vanishing. For what further action can one take but capture existence of creation for the enrichment of the created and celebration of the grace of living?

Updates on beauty

One of the wonderful aspects of being involved in this church plant downtown is that it really forces your mind to be awake. I have never spent so much time in sheer thought on life, art, purpose, and the overlap through relationship while too thinking of being relational in these aspects. And at this point some standards have really evolved in the structure of my thoughts, notably the fact that as we know Christ and relate through grace, which dominates our response to Him, so should we echo this with acknowledgement that life and its aspects too are an assembly of grace driven actions that should encourage us to truly strive and serve and create to honor our Lord. And I'm bothered by the extent I have lived and will continue living in some aspects, though hopefully ever diminishing, in an unawakened and automatic collection of response and ideology based more by interpretation and presentation of culture than routed in this truth. But nonetheless I rejoice to have been given the knowledge and accordingly I wish to alter and craft a life of both subserviences and beauty.

So let's break this down practically on what I do and want to do better. I am married to the love of my life Ashley, who caries our first child to be born in the end of April. And I simply can't wait. But I've been horrible to make consistent time to date her and shower her with seamless and uninterrupted attention to learn and know and lead her. And gracefully I will grow better, and ever more thankful that my love is tied to me with the enthusiasm I'm tied to her. So despite being poor I'm planning to make an indispensable habit of creating purposeful time and conversation to her, especially once we have our child.

Our home is coming along well and stands hopefully to the merit of God's Providence and my dedication to create both a beautiful and inviting place for our expanding family and friends and neighbors. I rejoice in the time and energy, and even the frustration in light that the work I do is not only for the Lord but also for the daily beauty and appreciation of my family.

My work is satisfying and I'm thankful to have a way to make income through generating creativity and the work of my hands.

So now let's get around to art, or in my case, the presentation of art in motion through the medium of the automobile mixed with culture. The Subaru is getting sold, in fact as we speak I've hopefully found someone to follow through with the purchase. So the big topic for debate is the replacement, which is a really open ended question. Initially I was truly planning on going vintage and still may but I'm just not sure it's the best use of money. One of the most surprising developments has been my complete lack of interest in automotive culture on large, so I guess I really am getting boring. Of course I'm not buying into that as an excuse to drive and build something that isn't beautiful in aesthetics and function, but rather I've made those my priorities over some external definition of what's impressive.

A Saturday As It Should Be

And how should it be, free from work. Took a spontaneous trip to a thrift store called Helping Hands with the Mrs. and our friends Katie and TJ. Turned out to be an amazing trip ending with the purchase of a 1940s Royal Quiet Deluxe Typewriter and a Philco Am Radio/ Record player that is tube powered! I need to find a place to get a good overhaul for the radio but despite a nasty hum from some bad condensers and that Montgomery seemingly only has AM gospel stations, the radio sounds incredible. The typewriter is even more shocking, I think it just needs a ribbon. I love finding beautiful objects for the house that are period correct and just what we were looking for

The Suburbs

Thank you, my darling wife for buying a record so beautiful for a husband so desperately wanting to know that someone else can feel this way.

In the suburbs I, I learned to drive
And you told me we'd never survive
Grab your mother's keys we're leaving

You always seemed so sure
That one day we'd be fighting
In a suburban war
Your part of town against mine
I saw you standing on the opposite shore
But by the time the first bombs fell
We were already bored
We were already, already bored

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling again

The kids wanna be so hard
But in my dreams we're still screaming
And running through the yard
When all of the walls that they built in the 70's finally fall,
And all of the houses they build in the 70's finally fall--
Meant nothin' at all?
Meant nothin' at all,
It meant nothing

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling
And into the night

So can you understand?
Why I want a daughter while I'm still young
I want to hold her hand,
And show her some beauty,
Before all this damage is done
But if it's too much to ask
If it's too much to ask
Then send me a son

Under the overpass
In the parking lot we're still waiting
It's already passed
So move your feet from hot pavement
And into the grass
'Cause it's already passed
It's already, already passed

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm movin' past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling again
I'm moving past the feeling
I'm moving past the feeling

In my dreams we're still screaming
We're still screaming
We're still screaming

-The Arcade Fire