Greetings!  Yes, I realize that it has been a while since I wrote anything but that is because I have thankfully been very very busy.  During the first two weeks of the year I went through a very interesting time.  Five days before school was supposed to start I was 100% convinced that I was not going to be a student this semester.  I felt this way because, well, I felt I had been screwed over by the department and the university.  The next day, four days before class began, I get an email from the department academic advisor asking to see me.  Lo and behold I had received academic hours to cover my tuition costs.  I was a STUDENT once again!  The next day I interviewed for a graduate research assistantship (GRA) position.  The Tuesday after school began I accepted the position.  So within the course of a week I went from being an unemployed former student to a currently enrolled and funded student.

So since then I have been a busy little bee.  Between school, slowly starting research, college ministry stuff, and a few photo gigs and meetings… there has not been a lot of time for writing on here.  Luckily, I have been taking some time off.  The last three weeks I have been skiing every Wednesday night at Wisp, a local ski resort.  That is where I took the picture above.

So, in summary – 2010 is still just a baby but so far this year is going much better than last year.  Hope your new year is going well too!

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

Ok, so no judging.  I have recently discovered the group Owl City.  It is odd, I’ve only really listened to one of their CD’s and it isn’t that they have all that impressive lyrics but the beats just keep you locked in.

So yeah, Tidal Wave.  I was actually trying to listen to the lyrics and this song stuck out to me because of some issues that I have gone through lately.

I am not going to go into a lot of detail on those issues because, well, I don’t want to.  Not in this setting at least.  Lets just say that the last year to year and a half has been an interesting one in the life of Ricky Beamer.  I have often wondered if there was a light at the end of the dark tunnel that I have been walking and running through and getting hit by the lights of passing trains.  They illuminate everything, give you hope, and then bam.  In some ways I wish these were the old steam locomotives because then there would at least be a chance for a cattle guard that would just take out my knees instead of the blunt nose of a modern diesel-electric choo-choo hitting me head on.  Yes, getting hit by all these trains has been teaching many lessons – probably more than I have picked up on.

Insecurity has become something to tolerate.  Too many issues in the hands of others.  I am not a control freak but sometimes it would be nice to have the reigns of life for a while – or at least be able to see the map instead of darkness or fogginess.

The good news is that nearly all the pegs have been pulled out from under me – at least the ones that don’t involve death.  I will not say that I have shuffled the priority list completely but changes have and are being made.  Maybe the actual daylight at the end of the tunnel, that for so long I’ve needed a telescope to see, is approaching.  With a little luck, we will see what the weekend holds.

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

Two weekends ago now (November 20th and 21st) Chestnut Ridge Church hosted the 58 Conference.  This conference is geared towards middle and high school age kids from all over West Virginia to help them grow closer to God and help them love others more.

You might be wondering where this 58 comes from.  Is it the number of different groups that came?  Is it the number of people they have helped out? Is it the amount of food (in pounds or tons) that has been donated?  While 58 may be the number for some of these, that is purely by coincidence.  The 58 Conference gets its name from Isaiah 58 and God call for us to loose the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, to share our food with the hungry, and to see and learn how to let the light that Jesus provides in our lives shine brighter than ever before.

So how does one small conference accomplish all of that in a mere two days?  In all reality, part of October the whole month of November lead to the conference as its conclusion.  The conference hosted the 58 Food Drive and the Trick-or-Eat event.  On Halloween, kids and adults from all over the state went trick-or-treating in order to gather donations for the food drive.  All of the donations were given to the Mountaineer Food Bank, which distributes food all over the state to where it is needed the most.  Then at the conference there were several main sessions featuring people who just told their stories of what God has done in their lives.  These were then followed by small group break-out sessions where the kids could then talk about and process what they had heard and ask questions about everything.  In addition to this, the conference invites several non-government, non-profit organizations in to set up booths and talk with the kids about where they came from and what problem with the world they saw and are trying to fix.  Yes, all of that can be some pretty deep and hard to process, but there is also a lot of fun time in there too.  The kids were able to smash the fruit of injustice lead by the infamous Jimmy Justice and run through an obstacle course and just have fun.

My role with the conference this year was three fold: setup and provide multimedia services for the main sessions, stream the main sessions live through the wonders of webcasting, and find people to shoot pictures and video – and maybe put together a little something with the footage.  So, if you haven’t already, watch the video.

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

“Dance, then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he”

Sorry, no video this time around but if you click the play button above you will be treated to a very unique version of Lord of the Dance by Captain Tractor.  They are a unique Canadian band that I recently discovered and the CD that this song is off of is actually pretty good.  This song was not originally composed by them but was written in the 1950’s or 60’s and sung to an older tune.  It basically sums up Jesus’s life on earth from his point of view.  This song does not describe my life at the moment – a clamoring of anything together with the hope of rhythm and a few shinning moments of harmony and clarity would be a more accurate musical representation, but you can’t help but dance along to this rendition to the Lord of all dancing.

So I realized that it has been over a month since the last update – which means that I am on my usual par of writing.  Let me tell you, it has been so long mostly because everything else has been pretty busy.

There is the school work going on (and luckily midterms are now over), Nuru Student Org and Grassroots work, 17three activities, and a slew of other activities that have been keeping me rather busy.  Most everything everywhere is going well minus a few bumps along the way.  I will say that this past Friday, the 23rd, was an interesting day.  I had the lowest valley of at least the last three months and the highest peak in who knows how long, all in the span of 24 short hours.  The sucky part is now I am going to have to do a lot, and I mean a lot, of work to make and implement a workable solution to what brought about the low gorge.  At the same time, with a little hope and luck, maybe what brought about the high apogee will start to happen with an increased frequency.  It amazes me what God does in and through others regardless of the situations.  I have always known that I need to be conscience of His presence in every situation and I try to be – I just need to work on the reception sometimes.

Ooo.. and other random news: I am going to attempt to build a new rocket designed around breaking the sound barrier.  The name is still to be determined but it is going to be powered by the two highest powered G motors I can get a hold of – as well as learning how to cluster start motors, be as of minimal of diameter as possible, and will probably require me to learn how to fiberglass.  It is going to be interesting to say the least!

So, until next time – be it tomorrow or a month from now, Ciao! Ciao!

This is a video that I made for my troop back home.  This past summer we all went on an trip to Washington, DC.  From the leader’s standpoint, the trip was a test to see how an extended trip works and how the kids would behave.  Good news is that the whole trip went extremely well so much more adventurous trips are now being planned for the future.

The video was debuted this past Monday at the Court of Honor ceremony in front of the scouts, leaders, and parents.  It was received very well and they were even more ecstatic when they found out that they each had a copy to take home.

So enjoy! Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

Image from Baking Bites

So the last couple of days have been interesting depending on what the topic is that we are discussing for me.  The moods have ranged from exhausted to upset to mad to happy to joyful.  Then today I received the weekly or bi-weekly newsletter from my home church and the main article really sums up my life currently.  So here it is in its entirety:

“Piece of Cake”

Sometimes we wonder, “What did I do to deserve this,” or “Why did God have to do this to me.” Here is a unique perspective on the matter. A daughter is telling her mother how everything is going wrong. She’s failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her, and her best friend is moving away. Meanwhile her mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a taste. The daughter says, “Absolutely Mom, I love your cake.” “Here, have some cooking oil,” her mother offers. “Yuck” says her daughter. “How about a couple of raw eggs?” “Gross, Mom!”

“Would you like some flour then? Or maybe some baking soda?”

“Mom, those are all yucky!” To conclude this conversation her mother states, “Yes, all those ingredients seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake! God works the same way. Many times we wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when we allow him to put these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and eventually He will make something beautiful out of our life! Romans 8:28 states, “All things work together for good to them who love the lord who are called according to His purpose.” Early in my Christian life I thought that this verse was saying that all things are good—but it did not take me long to find out that that was not true. It does say that in everything—even the most horrible and difficult times and situations—that good can come. But check out the qualifying statement. Bad things can work for good IF you LOVE THE LORD and you are CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE. That makes all the difference!

Now put it all together and you have the key to happiness in this so often difficult world that we live in. Let the Lord finish baking the cake before you take a bite!

God is crazy about you. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe and He chose your heart. I hope your day is a “Piece of Cake”—and just maybe, if you are lucky, it might even be carrot cake!

  — Bill Kidd

With a lot of things that have been happening these past couple weeks, this story has humbled me and reminded me that there are many things, good and bad, that go into making something spectacular.

So if you have been feeling like I have lately, remember that there are a lot of seemingly nasty things – such as raw eggs, baking soda, and cooking oil – that make a cake the wonderful treat that it is.  Believe it or not, you are God’s cake.

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

This song is originally by Hillsong United and this is how Chestnut Ridge Church does it.  Such an awesome song, and wouldn’t you say the lighting is pretty sweet too?  Ok, so that last statement about the lighting is slightly biased because I did the lighting this past weekend and kind of created that jumbling of colors.

I realize that it has been a while since I posted anything and I owe you more pictures from Alaska.  Good news is that they are coming but you probably will not see them here other than as a link to my main picture site, BeamerFoto.

Live has been getting busier and busier lately.  As an example, it took nearly a week to get back to Morgantown speed and even now I still feel like I am running a little behind everyone else.  At WVU, we are now into the second week of classes and the beginning of homework.  17three (formally H2O) is getting up and running.  All-in-all everything is starting to get back to its break-neck speed although I think I am just going to keep moseying along at my own.

So, I hope you enjoyed the video.  Sometime relatively soon there will be new pictures on BeamerFoto from Alaska and life.

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

I am testing a flash player that is hosted on my site for possible future videos. This is my dad and I driving up our driveway and at the end you get to see the side of the house. Enjoy!

Ciao! Ciao!

So yeah, I headed up through wild and wonderful last Friday.  For a few years now I have wanted to take the “back” way to Morgantown – a.k.a. the route that involves the least amount of interstate as possible.  Back in the day my aunt went to WVU and had no other option than to go through the woods and over the hills, and in true Mountaineer fashion, I followed some of her footsteps.  I will confess, for about 30 miles of VA I did travel along I-77… but this was just to go through the tunnel and I have made the trip over that particular mountain many times.  Even with this “shortcut”, it took me nearly an hour to get cross the WV border.  By now I was on US-219 and never looked back.  My initial goal was to go past Green Bank (read previous post below) in route to Elkins for some camping.  I must say, that is a massively large radio telescope.  Seriously, 100m (330 ft) in diameter!!! Big!  Upon arriving in Elkins I turned on my phone to discover that the camping had been canceled.  See, going through the parts of WV that I had been in there is no cell coverage, so I just turned off my phone.  Apparently I was supposed to be a popular person that day haha.  But yea, the camping was canceled due to weather concerns and a breakdown in communication (as in Facebook decided not to send out a butt-load of messages containing all the crucial information… Hence why Facebook will be the end of the world but that will be a different post).  Billy still came down – mostly because I was going there no matter what – and he ended up staying through the weekend to get work done.  I came on up to Morgantown that night, completing the trip from Wytheville, and thoroughly enjoyed the day.

Something that has been on my mind a lot since returning to Morgantown is how the pace of life here is so much faster than Wytheville and Myrtle/Topsail.  It has been making me rethink a lot of basically how I want to live.  Do I want to burn the candle from both ends or just one, so to speak.  I have to tell you, I am leaning towards the Wytheville way of life.  Basically it is having fewer things on my plate but increasing the quality of what is there.

What is on your plate of life?  Does it feel too crowded?  If it does, think about simplifying things, however that may look.

As promised, here are the pictures!

Ronceverte, WV – The Great Rubber Ducky Race!!!

Coming out of cloud 9

The river at the camping spot

One of those Beautiful Mistakes shots of the river

Old time Americana – The old on top and the new below

Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!

I guess it was last week or the week before I found myself at Best Buy with Reward Zone coupons to spend and hit up the music section.  It has been a while and most of my stuff was starting to sound old.  One of the bands that I have come to really enjoy is Blue October.  Their song Calling You off of History for Sale got me hooked.  The song in the video, Jump Rope, is off of their most recent album, Approaching Normal.

What really touches me with this song is how basic and truthful it is.  Life does have its ups and down when you are sailing on top of the world one moment and then sunk in the Mariana Trench – or as the song puts it the ups and downs of the jump rope.  When the high times come, remember and cherish them.  For whatever reason, we seem to remember the bad much more clearly than the good.  I guess that is because pain strikes a deeper chord than joy.  When the bad times come around, keep your head up high because it will pass – look forward to when it does.

Life’s like a jump rope!  Until next time, Ciao! Ciao!