The World According To Chris Brewer

With a renewed interest in my weekend life, I traveled along with Tyler Ashworth to Washington, D.C. to visit my dad and uncle John. For those of you who don’t know, my Dad is temporarily in Washington to work for a construction company while my Mom and brother Jason are living in Missouri.

SHOCKING NEWS….The Demon of Interstate 64 lurks near milepost 215.

My poor passenger was attacked by an invisible creature. About 15 miles east of Richmond, Tyler inexplicably started bleeding profusely from his nose. It just happened….no reason, he wasn’t in pain…just blood dripping. Then he started spitting blood too….it freaked me out to no end. Thank God for two things: (1) he brought a cup to catch the blood and (2) there was a Dairy Queen a mile away. So we pulled into the DQ and I ran in to get napkins while he stood there outside my car and bled like a stuck pig. About 15 minutes and a pint of blood later, we started on the road again. It still freaks me out to think about it….he was perfectly fine after that. As for the car, his clothes, etc…they escaped relatively unscathed.

On with the trip. We found a hidden Sheetz off the Atlee exit on I-95 north. Praise God.

Let’s fast forward. We rendezvoused (is that even a word?) with my dad and John at their hotel in Oxon Hill, MD (a few miles from downtown DC). Then we went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History to check out a few exhibits. After that we ran around for a bit, first to Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse in Upper Marlboro, MD to get my BARBECUED CHICKEN NACHOS (sorry, I get so excited about them), then to Petsmart to look for fish for Tyler.

Before we knew it, the visit was over. But man, it was good to hang with the family again and bring Tyler up to meet my dad finally. Good stuff.

The night ended kinda dreary though….on the way home, I-95 south was closed due to a terrible wreck and we moved about a mile in 45 minutes. Having to find a different way home was fun…but it also meant we couldn’t get home in time for Tyler to hang with his girlfriend. But we DID make it back to Newport News by midnight.

That’s about it. Peace.

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What Am I Currently Listening To?

Artist: Nelly / Track: Over and Over (feat. Tim McGraw)
Album: Suit
Label: Universal
Year: 2004

My new tradition of going different places on the weekends continues as I visit Washington, D.C. again today to visit my dad and Uncle Johnny with my friend Tyler. I’ll update later when I come home.

Godspeed.

So now it’s been one week since I went to visit Stephanie in Indianapolis. You’d think after a few days I would feel better about what happened over the weekend…I do somewhat, but I get this prevailing sick feeling inside. Seriously.

I know what I did this weekend was wrong and there is no way I can undo that. But I have this terrible feeling, the same kind of feeling you would get if you killed your best friend out of the blue and later realized how terrible of a thing you had done, and you wonder how you could have done it.

I know God’s helping me along, but I still need all the prayer and help I can get. My friend Erin last night put it perfectly: “You can’t effectively minister to others unless you have some bad things happen to you.” And believe me, I want to effectively minister to my friends and reach out to those in need.

The next few days will continue to be those of recovery and reflection.

I read an excerpt of the new book Wilt, 1962 online. The book basically tells the story of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point effort against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962 at Hershey Sports Arena in Hershey, PA. When I get paid next, I gotta run out and buy a copy of this book….I’m a huge basketball fan, and even more so of old games (especially the Blazers winning the NBA title in 1977).

Even more amazing is that the website for the book has the radio broadcast of the fourth quarter of the game. Check it out here.

A great tribute to one of the greatest basketball players ever. I’d recommend checking out Wilt, 1962 out if you’re a fan of sports history.

A break from normal blogging for a history and science lesson.

What you saw in the title of this post were the words radioed into the U.S. Geological Survey’s Vancouver, Washington office by volcanologist David Johnston, who died moments after saying those words….

Mt. St. Helens erupted today, 25 years ago, at 8:32 AM. My mom and dad always tell me stories about how they had only been married for nine days before the “big blast.” What a joy it must have been waking up to dirty snow (ash). In the blast, 57 people died and numerous others were reported missing. I think they said the eruption caused the largest landslide in recorded history, which is amazing considering the fact I used to live in the Northwest and have seen many large landslides (several notable during the Flood of 1996). Four years later, I was thought of and conceived….but I wished I could have lived during such a spectacular event.

Check out an amazing video of the blast, shot entirely by Seattle station KIRO-TV reporter Dave Crockett.

Here are some pictures of the blast and how the area looks today.

And just to think that Mt. St. Helens is still active right beneath us makes me wonder what might happen next. It’s scary and exciting to watch everything unfold. God is in control and He only knows what’s going to happen.

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What Am I Currently Listening To?

Artist: David Guetta vs. David Bowie
Track: Just For One Day (Heroes) [Radio Edit]
Album: Just A Little More Love
Label: Astralwerks
Year Released: 2004

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it. Apparently Apple loves Daft Punk’s new song “Technologic,” which personally was my favorite on the worst dance album in the world (yes, I am referencing Human After All).

From TUAW.com (”The Unofficial Apple Weblog”), posted Saturday, May 18:

Only a week after Apple debuted their new iPod Rollerskating ad, they released another thirty-second spot last night during Saturday Night Live. This one is called
Pop-Lock, and it features the song Technologic by Daft Punk.

Here’s the commercial. Click the little play button below to see it.

Seen in a local news media release today…

I went to go see Kingdom of Heaven last night with a bunch of guys from my church.

It was the perfect movie to counterbalance the bad effects of the weekend. Lots of blood, gore, killing, etc. Not that I care for that stuff much…I can barely stomach gory movies, but for some reason I really enjoyed seeing it last night.

Sigh.

That’s about all I can do after this weekend.

Sigh again.

I’m known to all my friends as a spiritually (and most of the time, mentally) strong and level-headed guy, able to deal with most situations that come my way. This weekend, however, was my visit to Stephanie and the Indiana girls we met at the COGOP Youth Conference….and something happened there that I dealt with in the worst way ever.

To give everyone a little bit of background info, Stephanie was my…I guess you could call it “love interest” for awhile. I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t like her, because I still do as much as I did before. However, she does not feel the same way about me anymore, and even though she let me know this a few weeks ago, I didn’t seem to really want to hear it until I was forced to hear it in person this weekend–and at the Indianapolis Zoo, no less.

The only thing I can take positive credit for, if any is even due, is the fact that you can’t expect someone to want to hang around a bunch of people after the girl he likes, loves, or whatever you call it, turns him down. Yeah, it hurts…and for me, it was one thing hearing it over the phone, but the famous F-bomb (and I’m not talking about F*@#, I am talking about “let’s just be friends“) really rubbed me the wrong way in person. The full realization that I was looking at the very girl I had liked for the past two months (ok, like I said, I still do like her) and actually hearing her tell me she thought we would be better off as friends, and telling me various reasons for it, hit me like a ton of bricks. Actually it was more like me hitting a brick wall and no medical personnel were around to help, instead the crowd just points and laughs.

I flipped out. I don’t want to get into full detail of what I said or did, but let me just say that some very un-Christian things happened, and now that I look back I am even shocked and disappointed at my conduct. Before you go thinking something like “I hope that boy learns his lesson,” hear me out: I already have. I am sure I have tainted many people’s opinions and views of who I am, because the only chance they got to see me, I was not acting like the real Chris Brewer. If I had another chance to redo the entire weekend, I would go back to Indianapolis in a heartbeat, apologize to everyone and try to be the best person and best Christian I could be–not to mention, the best friend to Stephanie and the rest of her friends.

Yes, I forgot my medication back here in Newport News. Doesn’t matter, it’s no excuse for my actions. I take full responsibility for the way I acted in front of my friends and their families. Like I said, I’m shocked and disgusted when I look back, and now it actually embarrasses me.

So the reason that a good portion of this weekend went so terribly is me and my trying for something I knew I couldn’t have. Shoot, I even lost focus of why I was there this weekend.

Stephanie, if you ever read this, even though I told you in person, I’m sorry for the way I acted. Maybe I might get another chance to make things right with all the other Indiana folks sometime.

Jen, Mindy, etc….if you all ever read this, I’m sorry to you guys too. I focused on something I couldn’t have instead of the fun I could have had with everyone, and I think I pretty much ruined the weekend for everybody.

I’m a guy, but that’s not gonna stop me from saying my heart hurts. I like Stephanie more than I have ever liked any other girl…and every few minutes or so, something keeps hitting me hard and telling me that her and I cannot be together.

All the while, I keep looking at the blanket she made for me, sitting right on my bed.

Sorry this post is so weak, but I had to get it all off my chest.

My thanks to everyone who reads this on a consistent basis. Even though there aren’t many comments on many of my posts, stats show that there is a large audience out there who reads the stuff I post. I’ve received a few emails saying they enjoy reading it, and believe me…I enjoy posting the stuff I do.

Be sure to watch for a new feature on the FirestormLIVE.network soon. My friend Chris Brooks and myself will be creating a section of the site dedicated solely to sports, and we’re gonna call it Brewer and Brooks on the Bench. I am gonna be busy over the next couple weeks, so expect this section of the site to come online at the beginning of June.

I’m out this weekend too, but expect continual updates of what’s going on. God bless and we’ll connect with you soon….