Hola!

So I have maintained blogging silence for quite a while here. Things have been pretty busy and I have been kind of sick. Makin the transition back to school has been a rough one on my sleeping schedule but it has been a lot of fun. Here are a few highlights so far....

1. Moved back into my apartment with my roommate and it has been awesome. Our apt is great and its awesome not having to live in the dorm with a bunch of rules. Besides that a couple of our buddies moved into an apt on the floor above us and it has been really cool hanging out so far.
2. Started classes on Monday. So far they are really really cool. I have been taking straight Marketing classes mixed in with an Accounting class. My classes have been cool because they are less note taking and a lot more conversation in class.
3. Been hanging out with some of my Tarleton friends and it has been great to catch up. Kinda cool to see what had been going on during the summer and just chillin with them.
4. Still have not gotten a job yet. I am just gonna go with reffing football games for right now. I should make enough money to be alright while doing that. It pays alright.
5. NFL preseason is winding down which means that the real season will start in about a week. I can not tell you how excited I am about this. This is definitely my favorite time of year.
6. Tomorrow I am gonna ride with Epi up to Ft. Worth to watch my high school alma mater....THE Goldthwaite Eagles play their first game of the season. Should get to see a lot of people from my hometown and get to watch the first real high school football game. I'm pretty pumped.
7. I am finally getting over a cold that I have had ALL WEEK. It freakin sucks. I mean honestly....who gets a cold in August? It really sucks.
8. Really excited to see how this year of school is gonna go. Im sure that it will take me about two weeks to get completely tired of school but I think it should still be a fun school year anyways. I will try to keep you guys posted.

Anyways those are a couple of the things that have been going on with me here lately and I will really try to do a better job of updating my blog more often. Gotta finish watching the rest of the Cowboys preseason finale right now so I gots to go. Dueces!

Hard Knocks

Hard Knocks is one of my favorite shows on television right now. This year the HBO crew has gone from training camp with the Chiefs back to training camp with my Dallas Cowboys. Last year Jenna and I went to Cowboys training camp in San Antonio, Tx. We were really hoping to go this year to especially since we would get to get on the field this time but a Church of God conference in the Alamo Dome forced the Cowboys to have training camp in Oxnard, California. It really sucks that I didn't get a chance to go this year but Hard Knocks has kind of settled my anticipation for the season down a little bit. The best thing about the show is that it actually gets you deeper into training camp than actually going. It is a great show that profiles one of the greatest franchises in NFL history. I suggest that if you have HBO then you should get home by 9 on wednesday nights and check out what has been going on the past couple of weeks in Oxnard. You won't be disappointed.

My Past Week

This past week has been pretty great. I haven't done anything really. I have been working on finding a new job and that has actually gone pretty well. With a lot of help from Nicky B I think that I may have found a new job that will give me just a couple hours a week which is exactly what I am looking for. Other than that I have just been hanging out with my roommate Epi. He is one of the coolest guys I know and its been cool just hanging out with him this week. We have been trying to get a lot more exercise into our routine so three nights this week we have been going to play basketball. I love playing basketball but considering that I haven't worked out in I don't know how long, I have no endurance, and they like to play full court it has been pretty rough on me. I'm slowly making that transition back though.

Other than all of that I have been looking for a new car and that isn't going so well. If anyone is looking to donate a car then let me know....I will probably take it. Hopefully something will come up pretty quick and I will get this thing solved.

This weekend Jenna came down to see me. It has been a pretty great weekend. We have just been hanging out and catching up. On Friday we went and ate half price appetizers at Montana's and watched Pineapple Express with a couple of my friends here in Stephenville. On Saturday we had nearly decided to go up to Dallas/Fort Worth to see if we could find me a car but instead sat around the house and ended up watching the Cowboys game and Michael Phelps win his 8th gold medal. Tomorrow we are gonna try out a different church called Harvey Baptist Church. I am pretty pumped about trying it out and can't wait to see what God has in store for me there. Also next week we got tickets for the Cowboys 3rd preseason game and we are gonna go up to Irving and watch it on Friday. I am freakin pumped and cant wait for the game. Sorry about the delay in posting but its been slow here and hard to find topics to write about. Anyways I got to get to bed so I can get to church tomorrow. Dueces!

Here it is....

So here it is. Nic posted last month that NCAA Football 2009 was the greatest game ever and that the day it is released should be a national holiday. Well I would have to disagree. Now I did go out and buy NCAA the night it was released at midnight and have been playing it like crazy but for my taste I always go with Madden. I have been a Madden fan ever since Madden 96 came out on SUPER NINTENDO! It has gotten me through a lot of rough times in my life and now the lastest edition has been released to a video game store near you. It has a ton of new features for this years game including a skill level mode where it measures how good you are at different aspects of the game and then sets the difficulty level of those things to how good or bad you are at them. Pretty sweet. If you guys have never played Madden then I highly suggest you go over to someone's house and just try it out....you won't be disappointed. Now unfortunately I do not have the spare cash to purchase Madden right now so I'm just gonna say that if anyone would like to make a contribution to the "Get Jaron Madden 2009" fund then I would gladly accept. Anyways that is what im ranting about today but now I've got to go eat some $6.00 fajitas. Dueces!

Trying to Shed Some Pounds

If you guys read this blog often then you know that I am a huge fan of Perry Noble...he is to me like Mark Driscoll is to JMob. If you guys don't get that then I should probably let you know that JMob is a huge Driscoll fan and hangs on every word he says. Anyways I am a huge Perry Noble fan and last weekend he preached about if it was alright for a Christian to drink alcohol. Well he was talking about how a lot of people were getting all pissy about having a beer but there are a lot of facts that prove that obesity is just a big a problem in Christianity as alcohol. If you guys wanna read a couple of the facts from that sermon then here is the link to Perry's blog. Now his words got me thinking about that and it is so true. Obesity is a huge problem that noone ever talks about but it is just as bad as drinking. I do not consider myself obese at all but I do think that I could stand to shed a few pounds. So this week I have been running everyday and trying to get in a workout. It takes a lot of work to push aside my XBox time to go for a workout but I have managed to do it. Now I have not turned into a total health nut or anything because I still eat whatever the crap I want but I have made a couple of changes. This week I have had nothing but water to drink and that automatically has made me feel better. I also have just tried eating smaller portions of whatever I've got in front of me. So I am trying my best to shed these pounds and put a stop to my problem with gluttony but it will take some work. So if you guys are looking for something to pray for then pray for my endurance in this task. I already am missing cookies and brownies but will have to cut back on them quite a bit. Now I have to go ice my entire body after my two hour basketball game so until next time. Dueces!

The Season is Nearing

I love the game of football. I think that the every aspect of the game is just absolutely incredible. Most people are really excited about the Olympics right now. For me...well....I just really don't give a crap about the Olympics. I mean, I like the men's basketball but it is nothing in comparison to a football game. My football infatuation goes beyond just a love for pro football. A couple of years ago I was looking for easy ways to make money and so somebody introduced me to officiating high school football games. I love when the the high school football season rolls around. I love being out there on the field and just watching guys that are passionate about the game of football go out there and knock the crap out of each other. I also enjoy college football however I feel most of the time that college football saturdays are just something to keep me slightly entertained between friday and sunday. Sunday is the day God created and told us to rest on.....so that we could sit back and enjoy the NFL regular season. I absolutely love the Dallas Cowboys. If you have hung out with me for longer than thirty minutes you know that I bleed blue and silver. The worst part of my year is the NFL offseason. It consists of me breaking out in cold sweats and reading mock drafts over and over again.

So you may be wondering why I am posting about football. Well the reason behind this post is that the NFL preason has begun! Now I know there have been a couple of games on already but the preason doesn't officially kick off until my beloved Cowboys open up their preseason against the San Diego Chargers tomorrow night at 9 p.m. I cannot wait for this game to get underway and if you need to talk to me then it will have to wait until Sunday because I will not remove myself from the TV during that game. I will be tuned in the entire time and I suggest you do too. Forget the Olympics....be a true american and watch some preseason football.

Shout Outs

So I have a lot of people on my blogroll but there are a lot of people that are jumping into the blogging world that I must send some shout outs to.

The first person would be my mom. My mom recently became a Christian and has been shooting some crazy thoughts out lately. She is a really smart woman of God and that makes for a pretty exciting blog so I figured I would post the link here. You guys go check it out...she is pretty much incredible.

David Stippick is a good friend of mine. He is freakin hilarious and does whatever it takes to further the Kingdom of God. He is about to head out on a mission year (major props to you bro) and try to take the world by storm. His blog is here and you can go check it out as I'm sure he will be updating you on how he is doing on his mission year.

And last but not least, Michael Pittman is an incredible student from Lockhart. I have had the pleasure of chilling with this guy for the past two summers and am a lucky guy for getting to meet him (and his entire family....you should start blogging Dustin). He is an awesome worship leader and is using his talents to fulfill God's will for his life. You guys can keep up with him and check out what he has to say here.

Back Home

I finally made the move back to Stephenville. It has been a long (but awesome) summer and now I feel pretty good just getting back to life here in Stephenville. I will miss all of the students and all of my friends in Lockhart and Jenna but I also missed just chillin here at my apartment (probably because I wasted close to $1400 by not living here this summer). Anyways the last couple of days have been pretty slow but they have been fun. I have finally caught up on my XBox playing this week. I know all of you think that we did absolutely nothing during the summer but we were actually pretty busy and so that left little time to get my XBox 360 fix. I also have gotten to hang out with my roommate the past couple of days *on a side note...Epi is finally getting a facebook effective tomorrow so you guys should search him and add him*. Right now I haven't gotten a chance to meet with my boss at the library since she has been gone and so I am still not working over here yet. Epi is applying at a couple of places so that he can get another job and so right now all we have been doing is sitting around, playing XBox, and helping our friend Reed move. I am finally aobut to finish up my summer classes within this next week and guess what? I FREAKIN PASSED BOTH OF THEM!!! Now I know what you guys are thinking..."Two classes, is that it?" Well forget you guys...they were pretty hard and I am proud of myself for actually doing some work and getting that crap done. Anyways, I am really looking forward to having all of my friends come back here to Stephenville and finding out what happened during their summers but until then I think I will sit back, chill, play Xbox, and maybe catch up on some reading.

Summer 2008 w/ Team Spidermonkey

Today was my last day as a youth ministry intern at First Lockhart Baptist Church. Even though I didn't really show it on the outside (since I only have one emotion....rock....that one's for you Nic) it was a freakin hard day. There were a ton of students that showed up for our "send-off" breakfast. I love every single one of those students, even the ones that didn't show up this morning. Every single one of the students have impacted my life to be a better leader for them. They have opened my eyes to see the kind of person God wants me to be. I have had a great time trying to lead them down the path that God is calling them to follow. I really appreciate every single one of them and can't wait for the next time I can hang out with them again.
This summer has always been cool because I have made two more absolutely incredible friends. I knew Dusty and JMob before I came back to Lockhart but after this summer I feel like they could definitely take up some spaces on my MySpace top friends list. They are a couple of awesome guys that I will remain friends with from this point forward. I just want to say to you guys directly, "I can't wait until we serve the Kingdom of God again together at some point."
This last paragraph is dedicated to my boy Nic. Now Jo, you know that I love you and you mean a lot to me but this one is to Nic. Thanks for letting me come on staff and help serve your students. Thank you for allowing me to stay in your home all summer and for all the food you provided. Thank you so much for teaching me everything that you have taught me and just for always being there when I needed you. I know that we butt heads a lot but that is the way that God has made us. It's pretty interesting that He would put two stong willed guys like ourselves together so that we could "storm the Gates of Hell" together. I appreciate everything you do for me and I can't wait till we are serving together side by side (as opposed to me being under your authority all the time). I love you man and I am constantly praying for you.