Numéro Neuf

Here's number 9. I love this plant. I have no idea what the name is but it just makes me happy to take pictures of it.

Number 8

I know I know, it's not a spanish title. But I'll be changing them up don't worry.

Here's #8, it's another picture of the frost but I love it so much I decided to post it as the picture of the day.

Numero Siete

Here's #7! Hard to believe I'm actually keeping up with this haha. This was this morning (Sunday, 12/6/09) and it was such a beautiful morning. At around 8:15 I went outside and knew I had to grab my camera. I love waking up to frost, the crunch of the grass is an enjoyable thing to me and it means that Winter is either approaching or it's cold enough to be here already.

Numero Seis

Wouldn't be a Charlotte, NC Christmas without NASCAR Santa now would it?

Numero Cinco

This is photo number 5. This has been a great time so far and I love remembering to put up the pictures. This picture is from our fireplace (obviously), and it contains my favorite christmas decorations. I look forward every year to these fat snowmen to hold up my stocking :). I think stockings are my favorite part of christmas in terms of presents.

Numero Cuatro

This lone dandelion stands tall in our side yard. Strange thing #1, it's winter. What is a dandelion doing in my side yard in December?


#2. It's alone. John (my brother) has asked me to name this photograph "Courage", which I have.

Courage (n) - the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.

Numero Tres

Picture number three! This picture, I can't lie, was taken yesterday because yesterday was the first real frost of the season. I love this picture because of the focus on the grass and the perspective. Probably breaks rules of actual photography in terms of "the rule of thirds" but I don't care. I like breaking rules :).

Numero Dos

This morning was a b-e-a-UTIFUL morning in Charlotte, NC. It was freezing and we had the first frost of the season! This photo was taken in my backyard as the sun was creeping above my house. I love Winter.

Holiday Picture Numero Uno

Here's the first one! This is from the night that we set up our Christmas Tree. Loads of fun from the fake, pre-lit goodness that is our tree :). Good times with my favorite people, my family.

Holiday Photo Extravaganza

Over the next few weeks (leading up to the big 25th), I will be posting a different holiday photo everyday. This will combine some of my two greatest loves, internet and photography, and also hopefully make me fall in love with blogging again.

It will commence tomorrow (Monday the 29th of November) and will continue until December 25th!

Can't wait to take the pictures and to have you peeps check them out!

Orange Black Pekoe or Wild Sweet Orange?

Isn’t it always funny how we think we know about something? Like we can think that we know what’s going on, but in the end we could end up knowing jack squat about it. I always thought that I could get away with saying that God’s got it under control. That he’s the one who’s going to take care of everything. Yes he does have it under control, but he’s not going to make out decisions for us. That’s what I love about it. He gives us a sense of freedom that only he can understand at this point.

That’s the thing I hate the most about life. Not understanding the perfect balance that is having God in control but also having Free Will. Free will is one of the most complicated things to understand. Webster defines free will as “voluntary choice or decision”, something that can happen totally as we would like it to. So how does this will and God’s control come into play? In Galatians 5:1 it says “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery”.

I think that God wanted us to have free will. I know that sounds redundant considering we have it, but I think it goes deeper than that. When I’m a father (in the far future), I will want to be able to trust my children. I want to be able to know that even though I’m the boss, that they can make their own decisions. This is where the “fatherly” love of God I think is most prominent, in our decision-making. He would love nothing more than to see us succeed by making the right choices, and a lot of the times we do. But it’s when we screw up that God’s love becomes most visible. Think about it, who would we be if the people that can surround us with love when mistakes happen didn’t exist? Where would we find the motivation to keep going. The motivation to continue on and to pick up the proverbial pieces and put them back together?

These people are a direct tool of God to make sure that our best interest is in mind. They help us when we need a swift kick in the pants to do what’s right. They help us realize that the whole world won’t fall apart if we just mess up. Messing up is a part of life. It’s a part of life that’s frankly inevitable, the part that I would love to be without. It makes making decisions near impossible at times. Knowing that there’s a chance it could all go down the toilet at any given moment makes life so unpredictable. Knowing that there’s a chance that it could blow up in our face and makes us feel like we’ve failed. Make us feel like there’s no hope for decisions ever again. Makes us go back and forth on every decision we make from that point on.  Makes us so unsure of what the future holds that we become agoraphobic, with no hope for humanity whatsoever.

But that’s not God’s ultimate goal for this freedom (in my opinon). This freedom is given to us for God to reveal himself to us more and more as time goes on. It’s given to us so that we may be able to look at the future head on and say “bring it”. This way, we know that there’s certainty in uncertainty. Strange huh? I thought so too. Until I realized that in all reality there is no certainty, life can change in an instant. We can plan things ahead of time but who are we to say that’s the way it’s going to play out? For us to assume that is absurd. Remember what happens when we assume. It makes an “ASS out of U and ME”. And none of us really want to be Donkeys.

A weekend in the life of a Covenant College Student

This past weekend I was on Fall Break. I decided that I would spend the weekend in Chatanooga, TN/Lookout Mountain, GA visiting my brother at Covenant College. I couldn't have been more excited about this experience. I hadn't ever visited him at college to date but that's going to definitely change this year. I love my brother, and I miss him dearly. It's been awesome to see our relationship change once we worked through our, for lack of a better word, crap in our relationship. He's been such an inspiration to me and someone I can really look up to. I couldn't have asked God for a better brother that's 2 and 1/2 years older than me.

I got here on Saturday at about 1:00 pm and it was such a cool day. A little overcast but perfect none the less. Got to see him play and it brought back so many memories of us being on the field together when I we were in high school. I wanted to just jump onto the field and play right next to him just like old times. That's one of the main reasons why I look up to my brother, his dedication. It's hard to go to college let alone play a sport where you train year round, but he never gave up. I'm sure there were times that he questioned it, may have even wanted to skip a practice or two but he kept going. And you can tell by his seriousness on the field. The way he communicates with his team and how he plays with all his heart.

The game was a victory, 3-1 against King College. Great game with some great people sitting by me. Speaking of those great people let me name them. Allie, Walter, and Lydia. Allie has been a dear friend of mine for the past 7 years. She's become a little sister to me and I was so excited to hear about her going to Covenant because I knew that Scott would be there to help her settle in for her first year.

Later on that night, I got the privilege of going to Scott's girlfriends house. Kathryn is one of the most genuine and humble people I've met to date. They started dating I want to say about 4-6 months ago and I can tell that Scott has been nothing but happy since then. Kathryn's house is incredible. It's an old house that's incredibly warm once you walk in. One of those houses you instantly feel welcome. The decor is definitely worth mentioning. Very post grad student. The term I would use would be "post grad urban chic". Warm colors and cool furniture.

We ate pizza and drank some Coca Cola. Great meal right there. One of my favorites so I was fine. I was able to meet Kathryn's roommate and her boyfriend AND her boyfriend's family. Such an awesome group of people. It was a night filled with good food, good people, good times, and good football.

I decided to come up this weekend to see Scott but also to see Allie. Allie is one of those friends who you can spend months away from but then come back and pick up right where you left off. It's been awesome to spend the time that I have with her this weekend and can't wait for another weekend visit. Now we come to Walter and Lydia.

I guess there should be some background information on how I met Lydia and Walter. You see through the incredible devices known as Apple computers, I've been able to video chat with Allie frequently and maintain contact. In these video chats I got to know her friends up here. Lydia is her roommate and I'm glad she is. It seems like they just hit it off instantly. I know that Lydia is just what Allie needed in life. Someone who understands how weird Allie truly is but not afraid to join in the fun. Walter made a few appearances in the video chats up until two weeks ago when he became a regular member of the sitcom known as my video chats with Allie. There's laughter, sadness, violence, perversity, language, anything you can imagine in a sitcom it's there. And that's why I love it and them so much.

A little more about Walter. I knew that Walter and I would get along but I was still nervous about meeting him and Lydia. I wanted them to like me, I wanted us to be able to laugh and cut up with each other. We've done light years more than that.  By now we're all the friends that looks, interests, music, etc hold no bounds to what we are growing to share. It's been awesome to get to know a guy that I can connect with all over again. I'm going to be honest, I love my friends. I would do anything for a lot of them. But I love new friendships, I love being able to get to know someone. Sharing stories, experiences, interests, hobbies, the like. New friendships are just exciting to me. Plain and simple.

So as this weekend went on, I realized something. Sure I go to a community college, sure I still live with my parents, sure I don't have roommates. But that's the fun part about it. I can go to any college for a weekend and sure have this experience but never meet people like this. I love Chattanooga, I love this mountain and I love these people.


End of Story.

Coolest place to work? Check.

Tonight at 7pm eastern time I embarked on what hopefully will be the coolest employment experience ever. I went to Apple for a hiring seminar. Attending this was an honor in and of itself since they had to accept your resume to come. I arrived around 6:40 and saw around 30 people and thought to myself "alright this is cool". When 7 o'clock rolled around there was a total of 120 people there who were in attendance. I was in my khaki shorts, navy blue tee and rainbows. I was a little intimidated to see people in suits, dresses, etc. but then people came up in normal clothes and I felt a little better.

As we entered the gateway/hallway of Apple employee's cheering us on the night started with a video about employment. Then the hiring manager got up and talked about what it mean to work for Apple. Employees got up and shared testimonies, experiences and why they originally wanted to work for Apple. It was awesome to see such a diverse group of people there in terms of ethnicity, personal styles to even things such as hair color/height.

After a while of introductions and keynote presentations, we broke into smaller groups divided by last name. I was in group "G" which stood for "Garage Band". It was cool because in each group there was two employees. We were given questionnaires to fill out and once that was completed we made a document with our picture, name and 3 fun facts. These were mine:

1. I'm a former gymnast/gymnastics coach
2. I'm in Art School for Graphic Design/Advertising
3. I'm deathly afraid to actually drive through the bank drive throughs for fear of knocking off a mirror.

Once we completed that we printed our pages off and exchanged them with someone in our group. I exchanged with a girl name Amber. Who went to school in Farmville, NC. Where I passed through a few weeks before this which was awesome. It was so cool to be able to talk to someone and know a few things about them just from that piece of paper. She was a Communications major at Longwood University who just graduated. We got to talk to them for about 10 minutes then we got back in our groups and introduced each other. This was awesome. So much fun. It was cool to see the company be really focused on you getting to know the people you could possibly work with. Also just to be around a lot of diverse people knowing we all had one thing in mind. The job. There were people who'd worked on macs their whole life to someone who'd never been in the Apple store before that night.

After all this and a few "hollering" contests, the groups were dismissed. I said my farewells to my group leaders and the manager and ended up talking to a concierge named Lauren for about 10-15 minutes. We talked about the company, small talk, and the like. It was awesome to just be able to talk to someone who worked there for a few minutes to get a feel for what it's like to be employed. I'm looking forward to what happens. Going back to my actual attire for the event, Lauren complimented me on being myself. Standing out and taking it seriously by actually showing who I was. Not just showing up in a suit and TRYING to make a good first impression. She shared her hiring experience and when she went to her interview she showed up in a suit with a briefcase. Later her boss told her that he had a good laugh when she left because he knew that wasn't who she was. She said it was comforting to know that she could've shown up in t-shirt in jeans, she was just too nervous she said hahahaha. It's nice to know that they just want you to be yourself, not someone you're not.

So here's where I go from now. This week I'll get a phone call letting me know one of two things. I either have an interview or not. From there, if I'm successful, I'll have a second and maybe even a third interview. They take their employment seriously and for that I admire them. They said that they've even had someone interview 9 times (I sure hope that's not me!)!
From then, if I get hired, I attend a 3 day training conference and then get store experience. Then I'll hopefully be an employee.

All in all this was a VERY encouraging visit. It was more like a "get to know your new fellow employees" rather than just a seminar. The people are awesome and so is the company. Tonight only made the desire to work for them even greater than before. 

Tall Vanilla Cappuccino and a Coffee Cake please!

So I'm here at Starbucks enjoying my cup of coffee and my cake and I realized something. As I've felt crappy all week with feeling sick, work has been awful, and just the restless few nights I've had, something dawned on me. Last night we were talking about Patience. It was so cool to see all the kids be honest and really inspired me to be honest. I'm not really a patient person. Especially when it comes to things I want. This whole thing with Apple has been a real test of my own patience. For those of you who don't know, I've been applying for a job at Apple since November of 2008. I've turned in 5 applications and had my resume referred 4 times. I had finally given up on it until last saturday I decided to go in and see what kind of headway I could make in terms of getting a job. I went in and the hiring manager wasn't there. I was beyond frustrated in the 20 minutes it took to get home. So after a somewhat "vent" session with my mom, I went upstairs. I decided to talk to the big man upstairs.

After my conversation with God, explaining my frustration, my annoyance, and my sheer lack of any form of patience about it he kind of smacked me in the face. I had realized that it was BEYOND pointless to be impatient. A few things happened after that in terms of activities and then that night I got an email from Apple saying that my resume was chosen and I'm attending a hiring seminar this sunday.

The way that God tests us is uncanny sometimes. I was only reminded of that today in my Art History class. We were talking about a painting where the painter depicted two different stories from the New Testament. The first depiction was when Jesus told the fishers to cast their nets on the other side to catch fish. The next was when Jesus told Peter to have faith and walk to him on the water.

Both of these stories have to do with faith. The fishers were so used to doing things their way that for them to change would be seen as absurd by some. For Peter, it was the decision to trust Jesus and have faith, or drown. Now the fishers caught more fish than ever. But Peter on the other hand had a less successful journey. He was walking on the water and had the slightest bit of doubt and got scared, guess what? We all know, he fell in the water.

I always find it so interesting how sometimes God will let things happen to us in a way that will remind us that he's still in control. A way that we can be at our lowest point, that we realize he's the only thing to bring us back up. Now I know that these are two different extremes in terms of walking on water and getting a job at Apple. But they're based off the same principles. Trust. Have faith. Be patient. Know who's in control. And believe that God's got your best interest in mind. Which he always does.

Rain

I find rain so relaxing. It's raining outside right now and I love it. But it's a quiet rain. One that's not making too much noise or too little. Just the right amount. I think the reason I like rain is because of the fact that I see it as nature's way of cleansing itself. As heat/humidity comes, rain takes all of that nastiness and says "I got your back, let me cool things off for a minute". Now there's also quite a few types of rain. More so what we see in NC is the thunderstorm. Living closer to the coast, than say Colorado, we see a lot of rain especially during the summer/fall transition. Yup you got it, during the middle/tail end of hurricane season. I love it. Nothing is more soothing than hearing rain as you fall asleep. Nothing is more enjoyable than a cup of hot tea and a book on a rainy day, or sitting down and watching a movie with friends.

I think that rain brings back a lot of memories with people for me. It brings back times where I've let the rain control my emotions to when I'm forced to be inside as a kid and be creative when I was younger. I used to hate rain. I used to always go into my parents room when I heard thunder and sleep in their bed. Did that until I was about 8. Then I started to realize the creation that rain is. It really can show the power of God and the might that he has. Also the control he has. In Genesis, God lets rain waters cover the earth as a cleansing agent to what evil came to the world. Utterly terrifying? Yes. Imagine with me for a moment. Every nook, every cranny, filled with water. The Grand Canyon filled. All trenches in the oceans now deeper than they are now. Incredible. Now at a different angle. Every mountain, covered. Every skyscraper, under water. The Sears tower, the Eiffel tower, Mount Everest, all completely submerged in that blue blanket of water. I can only begin to think of what Noah was thinking when the waters started rising. Was it an "I'm sure glad we're all in this boat"? Or was it a "Oh crap."

If you've ever been to a youth group at a contemporary church then you've probably heard of Nooma. Rob Bell has this one Nooma that talks about rain. He begins to talk about how Him and his baby son (at that point) were walking in the woods on a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. Then the storm clouds rolled in. Water poured from every corner. Every blade of grass was soaked. The whole time he was comforting his son. Saying it's okay, we're almost home. That picture of a father comforting his son is so prominent when it rains for me.

Knowing that God's got my back when things get hairy. When thunder rolls in and lightning is striking all around. I can always hear God saying, "I'm here, we're almost home."

First Post

This is the first post on the official "Schindler's List". I must say that blogging is going to be a little weird. I've always kept a journal and have always written down my thoughts. It's been a crazy couple months in the life of Brian Schindler. I've now decided to go to Art School at CPCC (instead of ASU next fall), couldn't be more excited about it that's for sure. I've recently been chosen to attend a meet/greet conference at Apple this sunday. Hopefully I'll get the job. Still helping out with the Junior High at Church At Charlotte and can't wait for the upcoming beach retreat that I planned with Cedric yesterday. All in all things are going great. Who knows, maybe I'll get better at this whole thing.