SS Winthrop Victory

I had a meeting yesterday over at the Operations Center. One of the cool things about the Operations Center, well, the only cool thing, is that it has all of these old historic Winthrop photographs. Buildings, shots of the campus, people, events, you know. Among these photographs of historic Winthrop I then proceeded to see something out of place, picture of a big cargo ship. The caption stated that the ship was from World War II and was named in honor of Winthrop College. What? Well, I googled it, and apparently it was apart of the Merchant Marine program. That was the program where the military hired ships to send supplies to European and Pacific campaigns during World War II. The ships that were apart of the program would haul all sorts of cargo, food, supplies for the troops and for aid to the civilians. Many ships were sunk by German submarines (U-boats). So, apparently this ship was built and then named in honor of Winthrop. Pretty cool. Actually it says it was in Tokyo when the Japanese surrendered to the Allies.

Not sure why we have Big Stuff as a mascot when we could be the war tankers, I think that's a bit more intimidating.

Cannot Compute

I just found out that the largest star in the universe, VY Canis Majoris, is 1.7 billion miles in diameter. Seriously?.....I mean really?

There's a point when your mind just cannot process info, this is one of those moments. Amen Jesus. You're bigger.

Hopes

Often I feel like I can’t communicate well the dreams and visions in my head with others. What my hope for CEP is, and how excited it makes me sometimes. My mind is always 5 or 10 years down the road in what I hope things to be then, so, it makes it hard to talk about it now when we’re just a few guys with an idea. But, I guess anyone can say that they have a hard time sharing their dreams. And the best thing to do is just talk it out. So, here’s one thought I want to share about the future and CEP.

I feel like the corporate world has so many negative connotations associated with it. And I think some of it is well deserved. It’s just so….sterile, bland, white washed. And, some of that is necessary. Professionalism is important, but, not at the cost of loosing your identity to the nothingness of cubical grey seas. I just think we can do better. What I want to do is to keep the heart of camp alive in the way we do life as a company. I don’t mean that we’ll be going down ziplines or cannoning to get to work. But, what I do mean is that I cherish the ideas of unity, real unity by having a purpose. But of course the best thing about camp is that, well, it's fun!

I love the idea of people from the same institution coming together to have fun. Like at Winthrop. I freaking love it when the student body gets together to do stuff. I got a lot of ideas from Winthrop’s welcome week from this past year. How cool is it to just have a week of events where people can hang out and have fun. I want to do that with CEP, just get people together on a Saturday night to have fun. On the house. If things do go well, then CEP should have quite a few employees one day. And I’d love to rent out a movie theater and pack in the place to watch a summer blockbuster, just for fun. Or go down the College of Charleston and rent out their auditorium to have dinner and a show. Just come on down, free food. And of course in the Spring, we’ll have to have a day off to just play soccer or something. Annual field day competition/grill out. Oh, and absolutely no question, in the fall, we need to have a retreat up in the mountains. A time where we can all come together as a family and refresh and seek the Lord, to reconnect with where we are and where we’re going. To just get together to sing and to hear the Word in the crispness of fall.

I want to build community, I want intentional purpose building unity, I want to have the heart of a campus, that thing where we can get under one banner and cheer, that’s what I want for CEP. Not for the sake of silly corporate team building exercise cubical grey seas, but for the purpose that Christ would be glorified in how we do life. May we love the way Christ loves, and may employees come to know Him through the things we do and the words we say.

18 years young

I was in the Library the other night and was on my way out when something caught my eye. It was a sires of old books about the British occupation of India. I was just looking at it for a second, and noticed that it had 10 volumes, and I took a second to open up one of the books and flip through it. And of course, I had no idea what it was talking about, yet there in front of me were hundreds of pages about it.

You know, sometimes I feel totally ignorant. Despite having 18 years of education, I still know soo soo little of the mountain of stuff out there, I mean, about everything. Granted, I know some things, but there's just so much out there. My friend Daniel once said, "You know when you graduate high school you feel like you know everything. When you graduate college, you feel like you know nothing." I think that's so true.

I mean there's just so many cool things to learn out there, I can't imagine how you could possible learn everything. Just take one country for example, like China. I know so little about it! Or like a small country, like Georgia, umm, I just know they used to be apart of Russia, and that they were invaded a few summers ago? Or, who invented football? Or what about industrial microbiology. How does the moon's gravity possibly affect tides on Earth? Who's the best soccer player in the world? How can you make a great beer at home? What's the deal with that little island south of Italy? How can someone run so fast?

Ok, the deal is that there's no way you can know everything. And to try is silly. But do what you to well, and have fun, keep learning, and bring God glory through what He has made while you try to figure it out, see His glory in it. Look at how His hand has been in history and in today, how He has been at work. It's good stuff!

See you at Dacus

Deep Indeed

I was talking with my roommate Cameron, as we tend to do late at night, and we were talking about Easter coming up. And I made a comment to him, that I needed another 30 years to really wrap my mind around the resurrection of Christ. This is where I'm at. I totally understand the work of the cross, it makes sense to me, and the beautiful depth of it! But, my goodness, the resurrection, I just feel like I've gotten a bucket full of sand at the beach, there's just so much more out there dig through. I mean, how much more does the resurrection reflect the work of the cross, to conquer death! Oh man, I need to sit down and unpack that, so yea, let's talk in a decade or two, haha. Jk, let's talk this week.

Anyway, in honor of Easter, wanted to put down the lyrics to my favorite hymn, hope you've got a minute to reflect on it, it's the Gospel, and man, whew. How deep is His love for us indeed!


How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Give me candy or give me death!

So it's 1 am, and I should go to bed, but I can't, so I'll blog about candy instead. Let me tell you the dang truth, candy is just amazing, and granted kids know this, but we as adults sort of forget about it and start eating salads and things. And right now, I'm having a second renaissance in this season of life, getting back to my love for the stuff! My candy consumption has jumped 300% over the last 6 months. I think it started by trying to stay awake at work, so, wanting the sugar rush to keep things moving. But it's moved on to my home life too. Granted, I eat real food, but if I had the choice between the two, candy wins. Haha, do you remember that movie Heavyweights? I always loved that amazing stash of candy the kids had in their cabin. I've always wanted a stash like that, but, let' be honest, I just can't keep candy like that.

By the way, new favorite candy, Kit Kats. I think going to Europe helped out with that, they have amazing chocolate wafer things, and, Kit Kats are a throwback to that. They're just really good.

So fish still gross me out, but....

You know they're pretty cool. I've been learning about them cause we're looking at the positive impacts that growing Kelp in the ocean would have on the the oceans. And the environment that these kelp mats create support over 100 different species of fish, 5 species of sea turtles, and even birds and dolphins. Because Kelp floats in the water, and fish are attracted to floating things, they naturally want to hang out. Many make it there home, and where these kelp mats are, life explodes! So, yea, pretty cool stuff. My guess, is that an acre of cultured kelp could create a home for over 50,000 fish. That's pretty significant considering how overfished our oceans are, a very cool co-benefit of growing kelp for ethanol. A square mile of the stuff could support millions of fish.

But it's whatevs, I'm still not going to eat them. I'll stick to pizza and chicken, thank you shoot.