Post-Nothing

The title is in reference to a personal favorite album of mine, because I couldn't think of a creative one-word title that centered around late summer. Also because it's not the end of summer yet so this isn't really a post-anything post. This made a lot more sense when I started than it does right now.

Since I last wrote, I finished up my time this summer at Sacred Heart's summer camp, have visited Detroit and Atlanta (and I'm still in Atlanta), watched a lot of movies (good and bad), listened to several new certified #HITZ (the new Miley Cyrus song obviously counts), and have generally been a lot busier than I honestly anticipated. Because of this, I'm breaking my promise to not write until my summer ended, because there are several things that friends of mine (AKA my grandfather, who faithfully reads this and will greatly enjoy his shoutout in this post) may want to know about the last few weeks of my summer.

I'm saving any longform I have left for my end of summer post, which may be gigantic (this is your advance warning), so while this is shorter and I may not touch on everything I'll touch on stuff that I likely wouldn't have covered in a post-summer post. (The word post is so useful, guys.)

• Biases aside, one of my favorite moments of the summer was a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Detroit and the surrounding area, where around a third of my family resides. This time, I got to see and experience the most important parts of Detroit I hadn't been able to experience previously. I drove down some of Detroit's roughest streets and neighborhoods with my father, which I've wanted to do forever to see the "real" Detroit (the bankrupt Detroit, essentially) (you can see lots of these streets here). I went to Canada, which was my first experience outside the US. It cost $9.50 total and it wasn't worth it, because Windsor is a place devoid of happiness. I had endless Detroit Coney Island dogs, which are the greatest hot dogs one can have - sorry, Chicago. There were many more things I could delve into, but these are the highlights.
• Atlanta is decent, but I can't see how anyone could live here for an extended period. Traffic in the suburbs is unbearable and the city's even worse. I haven't been to NYC, but this is the worst I've seen. I've been to Atlanta several times before and have come away unimpressed each time. However, Midtown is perhaps its one redeeming quality - a part of downtown that feels like a complete different city, not dirty at all and with several inviting points of interest, Piedmont Park the true highlight.
• Somewhat expected, but I miss Young Folks Summer Camp a lot. I met a lot of great people this summer, kids and counselors included, and I have a lot of stories to share at some point in the near future. I love my job.
• Fruitvale Station is described as "a cinematic force" by Rolling Stone Magazine, and that's the best way I can describe it. I haven't felt as emotionally involved in or affected by a film in a very long time, which is a very nice way of saying I failed miserably at holding back tears at the film's climax and finish. (There's around a 90% chance you will, too. Everyone in my theater was weeping openly despite most of us knowing the ending beforehand.) I don't often recommend new movies to everyone because I don't think there's one movie that's exactly for everyone, but this is as close as I can come to doing so. Recent events have caused this to become, in my opinion, the single most important movie you will see this year. Go see Fruitvale Station anywhere you can; you won't regret it.
• Other movies I've seen recently, from 2013 and not from 2013 (I'm really sorry for doing this. I like to make other people listen to my opinions sometimes and it runs over. You can skip this if you want):
• 2013
• Monsters University, 7/10
• The Kings of Summer, 8/10
• Upstream Color, 8/10
• Man of Steel, 6/10
• Not 2013
• Pulp Fiction (1994), 10/10
• Ghost World (2001), 8/10
• Bottle Rocket (1996), 8/10 (a strong challenger for the "most rewatchable film ever" title)
• Before Sunset (2004), 9/10
• Daredevil (2003), 3/10 (sadly, this is just as bad as I remembered)
• George Washington (2000), 9/10
• The Big Lebowski (1998), 10/10
• Unstoppable (2010), 4/10
• Paycheck (2003), 5/10
• Promised Land (2012), 6/10 

• Will's Favorite Songs To Ride Through Ohio (And Kentucky) To:
• John Mellencamp, "Small Town" (The John Mellencamp Pandora station made the four-hour Kentucky nightmare bearable. That state is where happiness goes to die, save for Louisville.)
• Midlake, "Roscoe"
• JAY Z, "Picasso Baby"
• Modest Mouse, "Dramamine"
• The Microphones, "I Want Wind to Blow/The Glow, Pt. 2"
• Texas Is the Reason, "If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours" (Midwest emo is best enjoyed in the Midwest. Who knew?)
• 2 Chainz, "Feds Watching"
• Iron and Wine, "Naked As We Came"
• Grizzly Bear, "While You Wait For The Others"
• Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, "Even the Losers"
• Today, in Atlanta, I went to the fourth or fifth most important food festival ever: the ICE CREAM FESTIVAL (look, any food festival deserves ALL CAPS. Just wait until next year's HOT CHICKEN FESTIVAL commences in Nashville.) in Midtown. It wasn't actually that great ($3.50 for one scoop of ice cream?), but it's in Piedmont Park, which I've already mentioned to be my favorite part of Atlanta, so hey.
• Meal of the month: probably something I had at Soccer Taco in Knoxville. You should all visit Soccer Taco more often than you currently do.
• Because we're both in transitional periods and are both very busy, JL and I will not be releasing a mixtape in the near future. With any luck we'll try and have one for you soon...maybe around September or October?
• I'm two weeks away from moving back to Knoxville for my third year at Tennessee. I'm even more excited than expected, although I'm becoming more nervous as I get closer to the semester actually starting - this semester I'll be taking 17 hours while working at Sacred Heart and I'll be having my interview with the Education department at UT to get into the Secondary Education program. While all of this is going on I'll be leading a Bible study with Cru in Clement Hall and juggling other things that will inevitably pop up. It's going to be a busy semester, but I'm still excited for it because I know it'll never be dull. 
• I moved out of Neverland two weeks ago. More on that later, because that house deserves more than two sentences.

Go Tigers,

Will

July

I've realized recently I have an extreme love/hate relationship with the summer season. Because I like the feeling of pants and warm flannel shirts far more than I do shorts and tank tops, I hate wearing summer clothes, although the fact I can wear Chacos every day is nice. (The amount of Chaco tan compliments I have received is too many, and I'm a little embarrassed when I get them now.) The heat is ridiculous, the Heat are ridiculous, and I really don't like either of the two. It's too sunny and the amount of sunburns I've received in my life before this summer are too many (I'm at one for this year, which is remarkable for me). The few physical upsides of summer are that it's cherry season (if you've ever had Michigan cherries, and you have if you've ever had a Trader Joe's cherry pie or many other varieties, you understand), driving with your windows down is neat, and being near any form of water instantly becomes high entertainment. However, when it comes to actual important concerns, summer is a massive opportunity for growth, both spiritually and mentally.

There are many summer-inspired verses I thought about sharing (especially Revelation 7:16: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat." I promise I don't totally hate summer, friends.), but for this post I wanted to write a little about Colossians 1:10, which says this: "...so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." This sets out a pretty great plan for our summers. No matter what we're doing or where we're going, summer is a three-month season in which we should walk with the Lord in a manner that honors Him and pleases Him, in turn bearing fruit in our jobs, our interactions, and all that we do, all the while growing in our faith. In attempting to do this, I have felt the Lord bless me in unbelievable ways through Sacred Heart and through new friendships in summer Cru this year. I feel like I have utilized this summer in a much more pleasing way than I did last year, and I feel satisfied and faithful in the Lord in this.

I don't have much more I can put into longform and I could use some rest, so I'll throw bullet points out instead. (I apologize again.)

• After dropping it for a while, I've picked up the bad habit of playing lots of basketball again. Two or three times a week, Hunter, Gage, Sam, myself, and others will get together and ball our hearts out...or to better describe it, play until we feel like we can't take another step, which doesn't take too long these days. Through this we've been able to have an absolute blast doing what's really been our only consistent activity this summer due to our full schedules and we met a Lady Vol last week. She's a baller AND follows/interacts with us on Twitter. She also called me a good passer, which is the first time I've been called that ever, so yeah.
• My last week of Young Folks Summer Camp begins tomorrow. While I'm excited to be able to go home for three-plus weeks to see my family, which I haven't been able to do since mid-May, I'm going to miss these kids while I'm gone. Here's a picture of us going to see Monsters University. I love this group.
• I bought a car this week, finally.
• There have been many super exciting moments this summer, but an underrated one is Jay-Z releasing a new album on Independence Day. If that isn't incredible...well, sorry. It's only his fourth or fifth best album, but it smacks Yeezus out of the ballpark.
• Another underrated moment of this summer is people learning that I really enjoy rap through the game Family, where the only entries I have put in have all been mid-2000s rappers that everyone forgot about. Or the time on America Day that I said I was thankful for Three 6 Mafia.
• Last one, but this is a real thing, and all of you should sign up so there's a higher chance of one of us winning a free burrito every week for 20 years.
• The Official List of Songs (in no order) That Will Really Liked Lately:
• Jay-Z, "Tom Ford" (language warning)
• Youth Lagoon, "17" (this plays at the end of "The Kings of Summer", a fantastic little movie with Nick Offerman and three young actors who know their stuff. Go see it. Now.)
• The Shins, "Kissing the Lipless" (seriously, the Shins' first three albums are outstanding. One of the best 1-2-3 punches by any active band.)
• Iron Horse, "New Slang (Bluegrass Cover)" (if this doesn't make you smile at least a little, get it together)
• Polaris, "Hey Sandy" (the intro to one of the greatest kids' shows ever, The Adventures of Pete and Pete)
• Thursday, "Understanding in a Car Crash" (there are occasional periods of my week or month or whenever in which I fall into wanting to listen to nothing but what I really liked in middle school. Maybe it's because I work with middle schoolers. Anyway, this song still kicks tail.)
• Kanye West, "Touch the Sky" (I tweeted about this already, but yes, I do dance to this a lot. I dance by myself a lot more than I should probably admit.)
• I move out of the house known as Neverland a week from today. No comment.

140 characters in these streets,

Will