I very dear life long friend of mine was chatting with me on facebook and told me this:

You are a wonderful God fearing man and God has a woman more wonderful than you have ever dreamed waiting for you. When the time is right he will bring you together and in the mean time I will pray for you every day :)

Those simple words of encouragement brought so much joy to my heart that I will leave this post short just so that my rereading of this note daily will be all the more enjoyable.

I have had a very difficult three years. Within three years I have gone from making at decent living at $26.00 and hour, having a wonderful wife, having three children that all loved me, a wonderful church in Calvary Chapel Golden Springs, an apartment, a car.
Today I have none of those things. I have no job, my wife decided she had had enough of me, my children despise me, I am churchless, I live with friends and family, I have no car.
Now that you know what I had and what I have let me tell you what I do have.
I have Jesus. I have the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne of my heart. No matter what those around me will say or do I am blessed by me having a real Saviour on the throne of my heart. My wife and kids do not rule the roost. A job does not possess me. I have not made a god of a church building. No, no, no. My lifesong has become Jesus.
Take it all away. If anything comes between me and the love of God take it away. Let my blessing be me being His and Him being mine.
I know that as I put my eyes on Him that He will restore to me only that which I need.

My wife and now ex girlfriend say that they can no longer trust me. My wife says that I cannot be trusted for the reasons of I did not hold up my part of the marriage contract because as I battled depression I battled her. I became verbally abusive to all those around me to push God away. I pushed God away because as things were stripped out of my life I blamed Him. I blamed Him for my unwise and foolish decisions.
My ex girlfriend does not trust me because she saw me become angry at God and also because I confided in her family and shared private conversations with them about us.
One relationship was broken and the other one was reaching. Both relationships failed because Jesus was not on the throne inside of my heart.

Do you believe in Love? Do you believe that God will restore me? Do you believe that those that I have hurt can ever truly forgive? Do you believe in the power of God to save a man like me from the flames of hell?

I have to believe. I have no choice. I have no props to hold me up. No hand to hold. No person to whisper in their ear my sacred dreams and secret thoughts. I have God and He is holding me. I have to believe that He is my portion and He is my prize that if I don't let go of Him in these hard times that when the good times return that I will hold Him even closer than before. I have to believe that being in the desert as I currently am will make living in the garden all the more enjoyable. The wine will be sweeter and the song playing will have real meaning.

If I am never loved again I will thank God for the love that I had. I am thankful that I tried. Let me spend the rest of my days preparing my heart for eternity with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

I haven't gone on one of my wild physical hikes in sometime. I have been hiking lately though on the spiritually plane. I crossed many valleys, mountains, rivers, deserts and I have to say that I have found God in all of those places.
Who do you say Jesus is to you? Is He the son of God? Meaning he was sent to be a perfect example for us to follow. Is He a Lord and King? Meaning we should submit to Him regardless of our own wants, fears and indecision. Meaning also that He is our protector when an enemy combatant invades. Is He a counselor? Meaning that He gives you advice and encouragement when the way to go is not known or certain. Is He God to you? Meaning that He is the only source of light, that is was by His hand that you were designed and known before the depth and heights of the earth were measured out. Meaning that when our heart enters a state of worship that our knees only bend to Him and not to a created thing.
Can it be that Jesus is Father, Spirit, Son all rolled up into one?

Hike #17 Mount Baldy on May 29, 2008

Ok. I decided to end my hiking routine with a monstrous attempt. Keep in mind that I am horribly out of shape so to accomplish this is very encouraging to myself. Mount Baldy is actually Mount San Antonio but it got the name of Baldy because the very tip appears to be bald from the lower elevations.
I started my hiking this year in April at a hefty 275 lbs. Now here it is June and I'm sitting just under 230 lbs. Unfortunately I have to stop the hiking for a while because both of my knees are worn out and I can now barely walk. So... I'll be losing some more weight by alternative means for a month or two and hopefully I can get my weight down to 200 lbs. before I start to hit the trails again.
The climb to Mount Baldy was very enjoyable and it is one that I will most definitely be doing again in the very near future.

Hike #16 On May 26, 2008 Mount Lowe Railway Loop Tour

Finally the rain has left us and I can once again commence my assault on the hiking trails. No photos on this one as I left my camera at home. This was quite the punishing hike at 12 miles but it was well worth it. I give this hike an 8 out of 10. The two negatives of this hike are 1) overuse and 2) lack of wildlife on the trails. There weren't even that many birds to be seen.

Visiting the old Lowe railway was quite the step back into history. I was gripped with sadness to know that we have lost this Altadena gem forever but at the same time very thankful for the preservation of the past for those who want to take a walk into the pages of history.

The route that I went was by parking at the end of Lake ave. in Altadena and walking the entrance to the Cobb estate and then proceeding up the Lower Sam Merrill to Echo Mountain and then a little jaunt up Echo Mountain trail to meet up with the Sunset Ridge fire road. I then followed the fire ridge road all the way to Inspiration point and then I went down Castle Canyon trail to meet up once more with Echo Mountain trail and then I returned the way I came buy climbing back down the Lower Sam Merrill.

My knees were shot at the beginning of Castle Canyon Trail and the return hike was very painful. I think I'll be resting my legs a bit over the next day or two and then I'll probably look for a few hikes in the 3 to 5 mile range to close out my week. I want to try and make at least 3 more hikes this week as this hike burned at least 5 pounds and if I can continue with a few more hikes it will push my weight down probably by another 5 to 10 pounds this week.

Here are a few links on Mount Lowe is you are interested in doing a little bit of research before the hike.
1. Dan Simpson's notes on his Echo Mountain hike.
2. Mount Lowe Historical Society.
3. Topo Mount of the area compliments of Dan Simpson.

Hike #15 Dawn Mine on May 20th 2008

Ahh.... found it on my second trip. No doubt I'll be doing this one again once I'm in a little better shape and I have a rope and a headlamp. As it is I went in fairly deep exploring the mine. There are some very deep holes in here so I was somewhat cautious. The trail to the mine that I took was the straight northly route. My problems didn't manifest until I took the east route to the fire road. Man that was a dangerous return trip. I lost a few supplies above the Millard Canyon falls area and I slid down the uppermost part of the falls for about 75 feet or so. Fortunately I only came away with a few bumps, bruishes, algae and animal crap on me from the fall. This is one of those must hikes that should be reserved for those days when you just don't want to go into work and it is partly cloudy outside as it was today. I wish I would have had a hiking buddy with me on this one to talk me out of a few bad turns and maybe to talk me into staying more time exploring the mine. Next time hopefully I'll have some rope,head lamp, and slickers for exploring all of the mine that I possibly can.

Jobless

Once again I find myself jobless. This time I see it as a plus. I can focus more on my hiking than ever before. Tomorrow I am planning to do some more hiking in the Lowe Railway area and Wednesday if they weather is favorable enough I'll do the 10.5 mile Coldwater canyon hike. After that I am planning Sunset Peak and Mount Baldy by this Friday if all goes well.
Oh yeah, my job plans? Something other than direct computer support. Maybe a manual labor job or at least a job in the great outdoors. Construction is definitely an option but I am hoping to find something in the venue of tree trimming or landscaping. That should keep me burning the calories.
The good news is that I don't care this time. I guess some would say that I have a bad attitude but really a job is to serve me not me to serve the job and that is the way I see it. If I put in more than I can ever get out it better be for something that I really care about or have a passion to see grow.

Good Links About Hiking and What Not

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1263/ information on fire conditions this link goes specifically to the big horn fire that as of this posting is still active at Mount Baldy region.
http://www.on-the-loose.org/guide.php?p=backpacking site maintained by a college about local hikes
www.localhikes.com great resource for hiking just about anywhere.
www.simpsoncity.com/hiking The best on line hiking journal that I have found

Hike #14 Millard Trail Summit May 16.2008

Ok. This hike was supposed to be a hike to the Millard Gold mine but I went right instead of left at the cabin and wound up about 1.5 miles off course. I did get an interesting view from the summit of Downtown Los Angeles though. Total trip time was 4 hours and the distance was a little over 6 miles. The temperature in Pasadena was over 100 so coming back from this hike was pretty darn miserable, but since I was hiking it was still better than anything else I could have been doing.

Hike #13 Big Pines Area May 14-15

I decided to head up to Big Pines area just west of Wrightwood on the 14th of May to knock out the 4 hikes that are listed in Jerry Schad's book Afoot & Afield in Los Angeles County ( here at amazon ) for the Big Pines area A-14. There are several more hikes to do up there besides those and I will return to accomplish at least the one mentioned in Robinson's book (this book) as well.
It was a beautiful couple of days for hiking and strolling through the large Jeffrey Pines was quite the treat for me. I did tire a bit earlier than I had expected and headed home early on Thursday after also stopping and walking the mormon rock park in San Bernadino County. Overall a very enjoyable 1 and a half days of hiking. Oh yeah, my blue ridge trail hike ended at about 9:00 p.m. so it was my first hike in the dark... good thing that I set up my tent before heading out on the trail.

Hike #12 Cattle Canyon

Another hike today. I got three in this week. I think I'll go for broke and try to hike every day next week if my feeble body can handle it.
I went on a hike down Cattle Canyon road which starts in the Sheep Mountain Wilderness right next to the old bridge on East Fork road in Azusa. Total hike distance is around 6 miles and this hike required 3 hours to hike. Not a bad time at all considering that this is a boulder hopping, stream splashing kind of a hike. If it wasn't for seeing the Western Tanager I doubt that I would ever do this hike again. The canyon is filled with graffiti and way to many stream crossings.
I can understand someone tagging with graffiti in a city, and in fact, some places I have come to expect it living in the Los Angeles area but what purpose or intent does it serve to tag in the middle of the forest? Sad sad sad is all I can say.

Bridge To Nowhere hike #10

Hiked Bridge to Nowhere on Tueday the 7th. Pretty good hike although from all that I have heard about this hike I expected a very well maintained trail. The exact opposite was in effect, there were multiple river crossings and the trail for the most part was non existent. Total hike distance was 10 miles and the time duration was approximately 6 hours.

I encountered 2 rattlesnakes and 1 very large garter snake. One of the rattle snakes was between 6 to 8 feet long and I nearly stepped on the thing.

Book Reading List

I read. I should say that I have started to read at a prolific rate of late. I am going to start posting the books that I have read and or listened to via an audio book along with a very brief review of what I thought. This is what I have so far since I started tracking these things back in September:

September 2007

1.Homeland R.A. Salvatore
2.Exile R.A. Salvatore
3.Sojourn R.A. Salvatore
4.The Crystal Shard R.A. Salvatore
5.Byzantium Stephen Lawhead
6.Streams of Silver R.A. Salvatore
7.The Halflings Gem R.A. Salvatore
8.Legacy R.A. Salvatore


October

1.Starless Night R.A. Salvatore
2.Siege of Darkness R.A. Salvatore
3. Passage to Dawn R.A. Salvatore
4.The Silent Blade R.A. Salvatore
5.The Spine of The World R.A. Salvatore
6.Servant of the Shard R.A. Salvatore
7.Sea of Swords R.A. Salvatore
8. A Thousand Orcs R.A. Salvatore
9. The Micronauts Gordon Williams

November

1. Looking for Alaska John Green
December

1. I Am Legend Richard Matheson

2. The Lone Drow R.A. Salvatore

3. The Two Swords R.A. Salvatore
4. 1632 Eric Flint

January 2008

1. An Abundance of Katherines John Green
2. Farenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
3. The Promise of the Witch King R.A. Salvatore
4. Animal Farm George Orwell
5. Slaughterhouse-five Kurt Vonnegut
6. Tolkien Humphrey Carpenter
7. God's Politican Garth Lean
8. In The Arena Charlton Heston
9. A Brave New World Aldous Huxley
10. The Pearl John Steinbeck
11. The Old Man And The Sea Ernest Hemingway
12. Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
13. Time Machine H.G. Wells

February 2008


1. 1812 The War That Forged a Nation Walter R. Borneman
2. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
4. Lucky Man Michael J. Fox
5. Beowulf Translated by Burton Raffel
6. Yeager Chuck Yeager
7. The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told Rick Beyer
8. The Red Pony John Steinbeck
9. The Man In The Iron Mask Alexandre Dumas
10. Tales of O.Henry O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)