DEAR/DEER

hello

Fall is finally starting to peak through here in Nashville. I've enjoyed the crisp days and cool nights. I look forward to smelling bon fires with burning leaves. This is the greatest time of the year.

In keeping with that enthusiasm, there are a handful of great tunes coming out this month or next.

- Okkervil River/The Stand Ins (Out Now)
- Good Old War/Only Way to Be Alone (Out Now)
- Kings of Leon/Only By the Night (Sept. 23)
- Joshua Radin/Simple times (Sept. 30)
- Dear and the Headlights/Drunk Like Bible Times (Sept. 30)
- Manchester Orchestra/Let My Pride Be What's Left Behind EP (Oct. 14)
- Copeland/You Are My Sunshine (Oct. 14)
- Ray Lamontagne/Gossip in the Grain (Oct. 14)

I feel like I'm forgetting one or two but I can't seem to remember. Either way, I'm real excited for these releases.

creature:fear

Welcome to my city.

Time for a little openness and honesty.

I hate going to bed at night. To put it frankly, it scares me or makes me uneasy. I'm not 100% sure why. The only reason I can think of is the fact that when I lay down to sleep..that's the time when my mind starts to run. I start thinking about all facets of my life and to be honest...very little of it is good. I usually drift to certain things more than others and it honestly just makes me so uneasy that I force myself to stay awake and hope that I can just fall asleep watching television or a movie so my mind doesn't have the chance to go where it always wants to go. Sleeping pills aren't an option, especially with my current financial state. So every night, it's a fight with my mind. What a terrible way to live. The end of the day should be the time where you lay down, relax and drift off to sleep to prepare yourself for another day. Something is wrong here and to be honest, I'm not sure how to fix it. Even if I did, it wouldn't be a quick one.

Secondly, people (friends/family) to me, have the worst time showing loved ones that they care. In all my life's situations, I've never felt this to be true more than I do now. Everyone is so caught up in themselves and their lives that they piss away the thought of others. I love this city. Nashville has that vibe, culture that makes it a great place to be. But in all honesty, I've never felt more alone than I do now. And basically, no one has given it a second thought. Family members that don't pick up the phone for a quick call to see how you're doing. It's sad. People just "assume" everything is great. And before you think it, I have let on to others the worries and troubles I've been experiencing. It changes nothing.

So theres a peak into my honesty. Welcome. Now go about your day.

Currently: [adventures & reflections]

Currently:

Listening: Colour Revolt
Drinking: Blackberry/Mate Tea
Thinking: How I'm going to pay my bills, What I'm going to eat
Feeling: Sore from yesterday's adventure
Wishing: I had more work/money
Praying: For people I have on my mind
Hoping: For a change to happen soon

Yesterday, Josh and I packed our lunches, stuffed them in a cooler and headed east. Roughly 1.5 hours away, Burgess Falls awaited. We arrived at 1pm with the sun high in the sky. We ate our lunches (blueberries, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, peanut butter sandwiches and water) then set off for our adventure. Not 10 feet into the trails a lady informs us that there is a copperhead snake under a rock in close proximity. I am deathly afraid of snakes. So naturally, my excitement for the trails was quickly smashed into bits upon hearing about the poisonous snake, chillin out under a nearby rock. We roughed through it (me praying the whole way) and managed to get through the day without a single snake in sight.

Burgess Falls has some beautiful scenery. God, is truly THE artist above all artists. The waterfalls where quite something to behold. We have video footage, as well as photos I will post later. The rough power of the falls crashing down on the rocks is something that definitely puts your thinking in perspective. You are so tiny and powerless. It's good to be reminded of that sometimes.

When we finally got to the biggest waterfall (I believe it was approx. 185 feet) we saw a group of 3 guys at the bottom in the water. They were starting to climb up the waterfall. We watched them from a cliff and said to ourselves; "This is not going to end well." These kids kept trying to climb higher and higher, flirting with disaster. Once one of the guys reached a platform, roughly 75 feet or so up the waterfall, a buddy tried to get up there as well. We could just feel it in our bodies...this kid is going to fall. We were recording them climbing for a bit and not 30 seconds after I decided to turn off the camera...it happened.

We watched this kid slip and drop about 10 feet, smacking onto another rock platform then had the rushing waters push him over the edge to a much longer drop, smashing his body like a rag doll onto the lowest rock surface. It had to have been at least a 65 foot drop, total. From there he rolled into the water...then, the blood came. We couldn't believe what we had just witnessed. We tried to call 911 but had no service in the canyons. Josh ran down the path to the bottom of the cliff to help. I had to run approximately 1.5-2 miles (mostly uphill) to the parking lot to find someone who could help. Long story short, 20 rescue personnel, 15 vehicles, and 1 helicopter later...he was taken up the cliff trails on a stretcher to be flown to the hospital.

From what we could tell, his jaw was completely broken, he lost a lot of teeth, split open his knee, cut open under his jaw, lost a lot of blood. He also possibly has a head injury and I'm sure some more broken bones.

That, is a day I will never forgot.

I hope the kid is alright. Some people just think they are invincible. Nothing is going to happen to them. They have it under control. Yesterday was a harsh reminder for one kid. We are not in control.

Making a Change in Our Youth

I know I said I would give you some musical goodies in the next post but I ran across this last night and I just think it's the greatest thing. So I felt compelled to blog about it.

So there is this youth program called Youth in Focus, located in Seattle, Washington. They provide scholarships for teens, 13 - 19 years of age, to attend these photography courses, learning sessions and even entrepreneurial projects.

Their goal is to provide a creative outlet for these struggling young kids. They use photography as the base for that. It seems to have an amazing result, as I have looked through the gallery and found some pretty great photographs. It's not just a place to teach them how to be photographers, but also to "prepare themselves for successful lives". Our youth is being tainted by a lump sum of garbage out there. A lot of kids grow up thinking that this certain lifestyle they were born into is the only chance they have. I just really think this is a great program and I wish it wasn't so far away. I would love to be a part of something like this.

Watch the video. These kids have a great future ahead of them. And no doubt, it's because of people like the ones in Youth in Focus.

He made the world a grassy road before our bare, wandering feet.

I have been struggling a lot lately with designing. I have to believe it is from the stress of moving to a new city, being unable to find a job, not having any friends, being so financially unstable, as well as other personal reasons. Thats enough to make any graphic designer a little out of it, right? If not, then I guess I don't know what the reason is. However, today, when most people have a "case of the Mondays", I figured I would try to get back in touch with just enjoying life. I've been at the coffee shop for a good 4 hours now and instead of pointless meandering on the world wide web, I decided to get back to working on The Sleeping Collective site. And praise God...progress!! It's not finished...but it feels really good to get more of it done.

I am still at no steady beginning for my friends photography website. I think I've just been thinking about it too much and trying too hard to get something going. I'm praying something will come soon. She's relying on me.

I think a good contribution to my outlook on designing today has been from the musical accompaniment of mewithoutYou. They are poetry to the pollution that fills the radio. I hope they never stop making music. Speaking of music, I've got a few more goodies to share with you. Next post, you better believe it.

This picture is awesome.

I think I should look into taking Zoloft.

[holding off tidal waves]

I hope this little design rut ends soon. Stress from everyday life can really put a damper on your creativity. Financial problems, lack of communication with friends, lack of friends in a new area, lack of church community...all these things need to chance.

> I've never filled out so many job applications in my life.
> I've never had money be such a roadblock from allowing my business to expand.

We are working on our first full website since we have started The Sleeping Collective. Our photographer friend, Chelsea from Utah has asked us to design her website for her. I have to give Josh almost all the credit for the design and code. He really took charge of this site and I think the results are great. As for me, I'm working on getting our TSC website design finished. But once we are done with Chelsea's site, we are working on another photography site. Hopefully after that we can get our site up and running.

If anyone wants to donate money to help us buy this beauty here so we can start doing video/video editing. That would be splendid. :)