Today

This morning Jonathan was in my room. Because he lives here! His and Ryan's lease on the Beechwood house ran out this past weekend, so they moved out (Ryan to his new apartment, awaiting Christa his love) and now my room isn't all sparse and clean :-) Though it wasn't terribly clean before, anyway. Looks like he'll be working and job hunting a lot.

I gassed up at Sheetz on the way to NOVA this afternoon and it cost $40, but I only had 377 miles. Usually I can get 415 or so if I push the "E." Such is the price of the fast driving this past weekend. More on that later. For now, gaze at the beauty of my car!!!

This was taken on a Sunday night when Daniel and I stopped at one of our secret cool West Mifflin places that we know about and watched the sunset. And took this sweet picture as well.

J
P
B

y
a
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!

That all was June 4th, a long time ago. But I saw the pictures on my iPod today and thought of it again.




So, about the fast driving this weekend. First off, we discuss WHAT I was driving.

<<< Secondly, we will discuss where we went. We went to Akron. Akron is where these people are. --->

Thirdly, we will discuss why we went. We went because the person on the right, plus the sister of the person on the left, plus a third person (Emily) were having their grad party. The triple threat. The party was Friday at 6pm, so we left around 3 in the afternoon from our house. It was a very well-put-together party, meaning the food was tasty and fitting, there were good places to stand around and talk, there was a field for games, and there was a purposeful time of acknowledging the reason for the party and honoring the graduees (heehee, new word!).

After hanging around till the bitter end (as always), my crew and I went to Steak 'n' Shake with 8 other peoples. We got shakes and a few got food (mm, chili mac), and had a relaxed and abundant time of enjoying each others' company and laughing a lot. It was there that I took the picture of the lovely ladies above. It was my second experience of "giggly Christin." :-)

Hah. Fool you are for thinking that that was the end of the night! We may have gotten back to the Hoffman's at 1:30am, but we weren't done. We hung out in this place

<<<

and watched "Signs" till 4am or so. Then I went to bed like the golden child I am while the other crazies played nintendo till 6.

Saturday morning I gradually pulled myself awake, and eventually decided that it would indeed be a good idea to go to guitar center for awhile before departing for Pittsburgh in time to get home to drive Mom and Matt to Carolyn's wedding. So we all got up, got dressed, packed up and headed out. And guitar center was closed! So we ate at McDonalds (which ended up being quite good IMO) till it opened at 10. We checked out acoustics and drums and a funky electric guitar there, rushed over to Lentine's to examine the bass amp Steve wants to buy, and then Matt, Justin and I headed out, 20-minutes past DDT (Desired Departure Time).


While I drove very fast and listened to Imogen Heep (the perfect music for the occasion), these guys did what you see them doing here.
When I was done with Heep I busted out Bon Jovi, which failed to wake the passengers. So we powered on, and then I started wondering where the 79 exit was. I had missed it, in a moment of distraction apparently, and now we were set for 20 miles of concrete medians, turnpike tolls, and 30 minutes extra travel time tacked onto a journey that was already late. I was quite ticked at that and tore us along at 90 or so 'till I saw a break in the median and yanked to a stop in the emergency pull-over. We ripped around Jason Bourne style and blasted back, cruising through the EZ-pass lane since I didn't know what to do with my toll ticket, being, as I was, unaccountably pointed in the opposite direction. So I was pretty much high on adrenaline, even as my mileage was low on sweetness. And nobody really woke up except Matt for awhile. I guess I was the "designated driver," sleeping last night while they partied :-) The hiccup on the turnpike completely nixed the appreciable time I had saved by doing 80 the whole time. Drat, and other words expressing my frustration at that waste.

Anyway, the crazy driving wasn't over. Mom, Matt and I were going to Carolyn Trunzo's wedding so Matt needed his suit, so I had to drive him to his house, and we only had 20 minutes. So I drove the fastest I ever have on urban streets and had an awesome time, sliding back into our driveway exactly 15 minutes after backing out. We made it to the wedding in non-destructively-late time, and proceeded to greet those around and watch the hitchin'.

That night was crazy because they had a DJ and after dinner he got everybody dancing. At first I groaned and anticipated an uncomfortable evening of forced physical merriment, but people actually just had fun with it, so I found myself out on the dance floor with the Caldwells, Rishels, Bates, Hertzogs, and even Mike and Chrissy Heymann. And Mom! Yes indeed, she was swingin' with the best of us. First time I've done something like that with church folks, and it was fun. I got SO sweaty...oy. It was fun chilling that much with Matt. Reminiscent of Youth Camp days of old :-)

So, that was the weekend. Sunday I played electric guitar as the main instrument, through the 70's Fender 75 awesome tube amp I just bought and will likely return 'cause I don't have as much money as I thought I did and I have $1000 of car insurance to pay and a trip to Japan in January. Then the Pirates game with Nate and Ken, which ended up being enjoyable despite choking humidity and then a 2-hour rain delay. Our seats were under cover, so we got to sit and watch one of the heaviest downpours I've ever seen. It went on and on, raining so hard for a few minutes once that we couldn't see a lick of downtown. The Buccos went on to win with an RBI in the 10th, which was SWEET. Then Ken made pan-cooked peppers, onions, shrooms and beef round for dinner. Good food. He's a good cook for the health-unconscious :-)

Today I worked 6 hours after class and a design group meeting. Good work. Listened to Bob Dylan's radio show on XM on the way back, which was cool. I could listen to that forever: a very knowledgeable and experienced music legend introducing and explaining eclectic, century-spanning songs.

Sorry, I'm probably losing your attention 'cause there no more pictures. So here. This is from Daniel's and my crazy Friday night two weeks ago. First we saw MI:3 with Nick Schuch and frolicked about the parking lot whilst pounding fourth gratuitious bass from my newfound subwoofer. Nick periodically stopped, faced the theater, cupped his hands and yelled with all his might "WE'RE AWESOME! WE'RE SOOO AWESOME!!!" :-)

Then Daniel and I tried and failed to compose a tenable plan to spend more of the evening with friends. So we took a virgin (to me) route to South Side and listened to Star Trek music, which utilizes the sub as little else has since.

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We pulled over into Station Square on our way 'cause we saw that Gin Blossoms were playing there, but we missed their show, so instead we walked on down past the sounds of loud music and loud people at the clubs, down to where the fence between the people and the railroad tracks ran out and we found ourselves under the gloom of the Liberty Bridge, in a concrete dump area for some industrial company. Then commenced a majorly sweet time of scrambling down to the river shore and wading about and watching the city and getting showered on. Then we wandered around the stuff by the tracks under the bridge, taking sweet pictures and being awed by the eerie stillness, the drifting sounds of the living city, and the movie-esque lighting. The temperature and humidity were utterly neutral, so it didn't feel like we were outside. What a time! Unique and unforgettable, and totally weird and sweet.

And THEN we continued on to South Side and got Gyros, sitting in the little restaurant amidst the mildly raucous Friday night college crowd watching the succulent lamb roasting before us and the employees spending their friday night slapping together gyros, dealing with drunks and grilling stuff. I'd put more pictures in, but photos.blogger.com is being belligerant and stupid, as computers so often are. Anyway, that Friday night was sweet, and there are more crazy and cool pictures from it.

I've changed my pocket arrangement, which is one of those little things that actually affects you many times each day. Rather than keys in my right pocket, wallet in my left and cell phone clipped to my belt, I'm going with keys in the back right pocket, wallet right, and uncased cell phone left. Carmex goes with the wallet when I bring it, mints and gum go with the cell phone usually. It works pretty nicely 'cause the keys are out of the rear pocket when I'm in the car, which is went stuff gets irritating back there. I like having the phone out of the case, too. Much slimmer and easier to use.

Ken's here for a few days. He flew in from Denver for one of his best friends Bill's wedding in Grove City. He leaves tomorrow morning. He is an interesting person, and basically thinks that the only life that has much meaning or respectability is living out on a ranch hours from the nearest appreciable town :-) He loves mountains like I love music and people. He might be going to Bolivia this fall for a month-long trip.

I have two WHOLE weeks of free time between summer and fall semesters, which I'm pumped for. I was hoping to do some big crazy trip, but Japan in the January (Lord willing) will take care of that, so I'm settling for dividing it up between Akron and here, and maybe Chicago. Work some extra days, remix some Pure Boss songs maybe, record stuff of my own...the possibilities are endless!

OK, enough brain-digging for now. Hopefully you, future John, are now caught up to some degree with your life right now. In general you are quite happy, though you wonder how long you can continue to be so in the absence of devotions. You're cutting down on music a bit to try to feed your mind more with God and His word. You're in a period of relative contentment with your social status and relationships, and you're feeling rather worried about Pure Boss, which seems to be drifting apart. You also don't know what you'll be doing after you graduate, and you don't want to work on job hunting. Boo. You've been playing a lot of electric guitar and are getting decent at it, though most riffs have been way overplayed.

Good night, fair future friend! Oh yeah, you need a haircut right now, too. Arg.

--Clear Ambassador

Been awhile, eh ol' boy?

Hi! Sorry I haven't been writing much lately. As in, at all. I dunno quite what's up--I just don't feel like taking the time to write about the sweet stuff that has happened. I usually feel an urge to document it so the memories are not lost, and often to complete my enjoyment of the events by recounting and recapping them. Not so for the last few weeks. I still need to write about the sweet Friday night of wading in the river and wandering around cement dumps with no shirt on and getting a gyro at 1:30am on Carson Street. And geez, Heather's mad sweet grad party last Sunday, and the whole wonderful weekend just passed. Hm. We'll see. Ultimately, I think it would be worthwhile to press through this dip in motivation to continue to document what happens, and more importantly, what I and others are like. I usually look on my past self, even of a year ago, with snooty contempt at how simple-minded and uncool I used to be. Hopefully the writings of this blog are preserving the very self-aware and thinking person that I am. It's nice to learn as you go, though.

So, there you go. Mike, you have a long-awaited RSS download from my blog. Now VISIT IT! Danmybro is sweet and Akron and Pure Boss are rather faded out at the moment. I graduate in December, Nate and I Lord willing go to Japan, and then real life starts. Or so they say. I'm still skeptical.

Beck, Imogen Heap, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Chemical Brothers, "Lifehouse" album, trance music and movie scores are all new cool music things. Care groups are just announced and mine still seems too good to be true. I wonder who I'll marry and when. I wonder if I should keep the Fender 75 amp I just bought. I can't believe a new nut for my old Strat cost NINETY-ONE dollars. *disbelieving exclamation of disgust and contempt* I haven't had devotions in weeks, yet somehow remain solvent spiritually, at least in some ways. I really wonder what will coalesce as normal once Daniel, Justin, Heather and Jess leave for college. I pretty much look forward to visting them at their colleges, especially Daniel and Jess. I can still hardly believe it's true that Jonathan is moving in with us in a week! Joy! In some ways I feel really smart and wise and intuitive. Like, it was unthinkingly obvious to me that the distortion section of the Fender 75 was patched in line after the clean section, not an independent channel. But that was like a big discovery for people who wrote reviews about it. I'm working harder at work now that I have a clear goal and a strong sense of necessity for the task at hand (EDNA). Classes feel mostly superfluous. I have hardly played an acoustic guitar for weeks, and I'm likin' it. There is a great weight of work to be done to bring my solo album to reality, but I keep pleasantly inching towards that goal. Imogen Heap is flat out beautiful-sounding. Daisy is flat out cute. Mom and Dad are care group leaders again! Yay for Dad's great gifts to be turned once again to the benefit of a group of people. I hope they appreciate the service they are already beginning to receive (Dad spent basically all evening working VERY hard on calling people, setting up meeting time and place, and planning our first get-together, and we just got the new assignments today!). My iTunes is fixed so I can once again rip CD's!

OK, I think I've vented and rambled enough. I closed my eyes and thought for about 10 seconds and nothing came to mind to say, so we'll leave it.

Mine is indeed a confounding cup of tea to drink, yet not unpleasant.

--Clear Ambassador

Muuuusic

I continue to be amazed at my ability to appreciate music. I say that so blatantly because I used to be very UNlike that, and I don't know what's changed, so I can't really take any credit for it. I just listened to Muddy Waters a bunch and enjoyed it (especially "Floyd's Guitar Blues," all 7 minutes of it), and now I find myself rocking my head to Led Zepplin - a band I used to despise. I've even enjoyed the light doses of Kenny Chesny and Jimmy Buffet that Daniel has played. The biggest surprise has been Bread. They're a soft rock/pop 70's group like the Carpenters, and I was expecting to be repulsed by their music as I was by Todd Rundgren. But I found myself loving it and listening to it over and over. Crazy!

Basically, for the last month or two, whatever music I've played I have thoroughly enjoyed (unless I'm too distracted to pay it reasonable attention). It's tricky, though, 'cause I'm gettin' my brain all swimming with music and it's crowding out God and spiritual things which I should be remembering, praying about, and acting upon. So, I'm trying to tone it down. But it's hard, 'cause I want to suck in as much as I can while this capacity for appreciation and education lasts. Oh well. In the end, nobody really gives a sneeze if I know what made Led Zepplin's music so great....except me. And in all seriousness, that's the opinion I care most about. Everybody else can think I'm an idiot and I honestly won't care, but if I feel like I look like an idiot, I'll cringe at the memory of it for days (even years, with a couple incidents).

All of which is to say, Music is sweet and I'm too full of myself. Now you can go back to your lives as you once knew them.

--John B

Baby Bluuue

Hooray! I recorded a new song this afternoon. Hooray because I finally got down to work and took an idea to completion.

After watching and Eric Clapton blues DVD with Nate I was inspired, and after diddling around for awhile came up with the main riff that constitutes this song. I spent around 4 hours playing it downstairs till I got it just about right, and then a bit more time mastering it with Ozone. I'd be very interested to hear how it hits you on your first listen, since I've lost nearly all objectivity from hearing it about 50 times.

Enjoy!

Baby Blue

--Clear Ambassador

##THUMP THUMP##

Once again, I'm writing about a minor occurence before I've journaled last weekend's trip to Akron, or hey, what about Youth Camp? Anyway, I wanna talk about my new suboofer!

Steve found it for me at his neighbor's garage sale. After some brand checking and haggling we settled on $150 for the huge dual 12" sub and a 1000-watt Boss amp. Great price considering either one of those by themselves could cost $200 or $300. So he got it, and I bided my time to finally achieve the dream I'd had for about a year.

Last weekend Steve and I spent the last half of Saturday, and the first half hour of Sunday, installing the woofer in my car. I was quite miffed by the EIGHTY-FIVE dollars required to buy the wiring and converter needed to install it, but oh well--it's still way cheaper than buying it new. I gained a whole new view of my car as we pulled off interior panels, found speaker wiring, pulled out the glovebox, and jimmied wires behind panels and under carpets. It was cool to actually do stuff on my car, which till now has been an untouchable machine. The coolest part ended up coming out of my greatest fear: the mysterious blue wire. I couldn't find any wires from the back of my factory stereo, and you need a remote activation wire (the blue one) to tell the amp to turn on when you turn your stereo on. Bummer. But we talked to a guy at Best Buy and he said it was just a wire from the battery, so we looped the wire we'd already run through a SWITCH in the DASHBOARD. Yes: I can turn the sub on and off at will with a slick-looking, solidly-installed switch down by the hood release. Sweet!

My first day with my new booming friend was rather unsettling. It was woofier and muddier than I had remembered Steve's being, and I feared that the money I had invested would turn into a let-down. But I worked with the settings on the amp, and my expectations began to adjust. The point really isn't to have the hairs on your arms vibrating, though that's fun at times. The point is that you can get great representation of the bass end of the music you listen to. So I adjusted levels and crossover points, and I've got it now to where the balance is good, and it's basically sweetly-kicking low end. I'm enjoying it more and more with every mile I drive. Also, some songs work well with it, and others just have badly-mixed low ends that turn to car-rattling hum and mud. Other songs, though....mmmmm

So, I like it! It's sweet, and I'll keep tweaking it to get it perfect. It feels weird to pull up to a stoplight and realize that if I don't turn it down, I'll be one of those sub-thumping jerks in the eyes of everyone around me. Strange feeling. But when I'm rolling down the road, a song is starting up, and when the kick drum comes in the car is filled with a sweet thud, it's pretty delightful!

I'm happy with it :-)

==Clear A==

Yooth Kamp

Well, I guess it's time to write about Youth Camp. It's always daunting to commence journaling such a long and eventful time, which is why I haven't yet.

This Youth Camp was fundamentally different from every other one I've been to. YC has always been a *magical* time, with seemingly endless days filled with nonstop interaction with special people, crazy activities, fun food and mindset-shifting spiritual input and application. This YC showed the toll of my increasing age and familiarity with extrapittsburghian friends as the whole thing seemed a bit more ordinary and the days slipped by quickly. It was seriously no more special to hang out with Craig than with Justin, and I felt like I hardly had any time to hang out anyway. Plus there is a teeming crowd of newcomers to the youth scene who I don't know. Last year I was somewhat of a celebrity during youth camp, bombing people with skittles from the cherrypicker bucket, putting together the Star Wars parody intro for the whole roasted pig Thursday night, playing on the worship team, writing a big letter to Captain Midnight that won our cabin the award for cleanest on Friday, and knowing most of the folks around. Plus I literally was taken from despairing spiritual dryness to glowing experience of God and joy. Pretty much impossible to top that :-)

So, given that there wasn't pixy dust, what was there? How do I want to remember this youth camp in the years to come? What were those days like?

Well, it started off by tossing some frisbees outside a pavilion in South Park as youth and parents arrived and pizza and pop awaited us on the tables. We ate and talked, and then left promptly at 12:30, obeying Mr. Pierson's firm orders. I rode with Mom, Katie Caldwell and Gabrielle Martin, and our van took a long time getting there. It was about 3:00 when we arrived. I wandered around saying hi and trying to find Joe Ryer, the head of YC, to find out what he wanted me to do. Direction didn't really come until the parents meeting at 4, when we got the low-down from Joe and got to sign up to help with games. I picked Belly Bumper Basket Ball (yay, Belly Bumpers were back!) Thursday and Noodle Sockey (best game ever!) Friday. Then the confusion trying to find out when worship practice was, who was going, who I could ride with, and how I could get in now and set up my electric guitar stuff. All those questions were answered, all those tasks accomplished, and so a few hours later I jumped to the front of the dinner line, grabbed a burger, ate with a few folks, and then headed over to Penn Run (the big gym-type place where the main meetings were held and all the guys slept) for practice. Though I was joyously honored to play guitar on the youth camp worship team (pretty much the funnest time you'll ever have in a worship band), I realized by the end that it did take a toll on my time with people. That and refereeing. I ate my lunches and dinners quick and early and was out practicing with the band or preparing for games while everybody else was eating, getting cabin inspection reports, and talking. By no means an unequal tradeoff, but a tradeoff nonetheless.

Worship was great, though I found out afterwards that the EQ was crummy on my guitar so nobody could really hear it. Oh well. People kept saying how great of a time it looked like I was having up there, and those that I asked said it helped them worship, so that's cool. It was a great time. The theme of YC was basically refreshing the gospel and such for kids who have grown up Christian, as probably 95% of YC'ers have. The messages really didn't have a bit impact on me, though they were certainly refreshing to hear. In fact, on Thursday night I couldn't stand it anymore, as the glorious truths of the Gospel being spoken by Stephen just bounced off my ears, and seemed to be bouncing off everybody's ears. I went back into the dark kitchen and prayed for the last half of the sermon, just crying out to God to open our hearts to these amazing truths that we've gotten so accustomed to hearing. That was the spiritual highlight of YC. That and David's message about the battle against sin and Mr. Altrogge's message about needing to use the riches God's given us. Those were sweet messages. The Altrogges are a ridiculously sweet family :-)

SO. Wednesday night, playing, message, then playing basketball and such and eventually setting up my bedding by Daniel, Craig, Nick and others, brushing my teeth in the men's room, and sleeping fitfully on the unyeilding concrete floor.

Thursday and Friday were similar: up, dress, pack up stuff, ride to the camp, go to prayer meeting a little late (highly populated this year), breakfast (as in, verb), chill briefly, then hit the morning session in the main room at New Horizons. There were team devotions after the session, in which I participated on Thursday. Friday I got Noodle Sockey ready. Then lunch (first in line, first to leave) and reffing games all afternoon. As I stood by the field and made calls and watched people play hard I felt the lack of getting hot and sweaty and tired with the teams doing the games. Ah, to be a team leader! Anyway, I was happy to help out. On Friday it rained substantially, and we kept right on playing, and that was sweet even though I got rather chilly. Yay for getting soaked and not caring! That afternoon I killed 3 Dr.Peppers as I stood by the goal and made calls and entertained the goalies. Mmm, that was some of the best Dr.P I've ever had.

After the afternoon (afterafternoon?) it was time for a shower. However, you see, I did not know that my first day, so I brought no additional clothing. Augh, I still cringe at the memory of besmirching my newfound cleanliness with the soiled clothes of the sweaty afternoon. *Jibbly*. But Friday I was one day older and one day wiser, so I brought a second set of clothes. Yay! Then dinner, then practice, then session, then sleep. So passed Thursday and Friday. Oh yeah - Friday morning I got up real early but missed the car Justin and some others rode in, so I sat at a picnic table in the pavilion outside Penn Run and read the Bible and prayed--a rather strange but pretty nice time of devotions. Ah, if only I did stuff like that in normal life. Ah yes, and Friday night we had skits! The theme was "youth camp games that didn't make the cut" (best theme ever!), and they had to include an adult. Steve claimed me for Code Red, so I had fun planning it out with them and practicing it. It ended up going really well, and was the best skit of the evening, as judged by the...judges. Yeah. Skits were sweet, and they always bring teams together in cool ways. Ah yes, and Mr. Altrogge danced a bunch in his skit, in addition to the amazing air guitar he performed before his sermon. Like I said--Altrogges...ridiculously sweet :-)

Saturday we got to sleep in a bit more, and there was no session after breakfast. Rather, we had the lengthy awards ceremony/thanking people who put this together. Code Red won, baby! I felt like they were my team, so I was happy to hand out the big chocolate bars that constituted the immortal prize won by their supremacy. Then it was clean-up time, which I pretty much didn't participate in because it was all pretty much done by the time I got out the building (ooh, droppin' dat gangsta speak on y'all!). 'S cool--there was lots of help and lots of time. I loaded up on half-price snack trailer snacks, gave big Nate a Dr.P before he headed out, signed a few people's books, and then we congregated to feed upon lunch vittles. Mm mm, more processed, white, high-carb, low-vitamin American food! Then the good-byes, more book-writing, though I didn't sign very many, and then heading out. Mom and Dad had come up Friday morning, so we rode in the van with them and Mike Q. All Pittsburghers stopped at THE MEADOWS, an ice-cream place that you simply cannot not stop at when your around Indiana, *tsk*, which was cool. The ice-cream really was good, too--a great balance of creaminess and iceiness. Then we split up and headed home, and I drifted in and out of sleep as the others talked about YC. I apparently slept solid for awhile, and the awakening occured hazily and gradually, so I was rather weirded out when we were heading up the hill to the house. But it was all good, the sleep was sweet, and it was really nice to have Mike along for the drive. He's a good egg. And he reads this blog, so that makes him a double good egg. Yeah Mike, you double-egg goody! ?? oy.

Anyway, I think this YC post is done. I'll probably read it over in awhile and add more stuff that I forgot, but for now it's out there, and dat's coo', and i'ma check out Daniel's pictures from our crazy night out on the town (another post for another day). It's freakin' 4:15am man!!

Good night. YC was fun, and I need to remember the sermons and not let them fade. I've been given amazing riches in my life, my upbringing, my salvation, and my situation. Do I view them as belonging to Someone else? Am I just twiddling them away? What should I do with them? Such should be my serious considerations. Lord, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven, I pray.

--Clear Ambassador (That's actually just me, John)

Pledging Allegiance

[I'm working in the youth camp post, don't worry.]

Part of Mom's "4th of July Patriotic Program" for the late afternoon/evening of said holiday was all of us standing out on the front patio and saying the pledge of allegiance as we faced the flag hanging outside our door. This physical ritual stirred me to actually consider the words I was speaking as I held my right hand over my heart. I don't want to go on and on about this, attempting to extract deep indicting meaning from an epiphanaical personal experience, but I do think it is interesting, beneficial, and a bit shocking to think of what you're saying and doing when you pledge your allegiance to the flag.

Committing yourself to this nation is not a meaningless patriotic apple pie starry-eyed anachronistic ritual. As I said those words I thought of all the things I despise in America--all the goverment officials, offices, practices and problems I have hated and despaired over, all the things that rankle me in the great swarming creature that is the goverment of the United States. I was pledging allegiance to that.
I was promising to support and ally myself with that one ship in the global sea. So much of geopolitics is taken for granted in my mind that country borders seem more like relics of the past that happen to be how we distribute the colors in our World Atlases. However, even as communications technology and force-fed cultural appreciation make the globe seem like one big college campus, there is a kernel of a NATION that remains, and I held my hand over my heart, faced the flag that represents that nation, and pledged my allegiance to it.
It's not as drastically and personally applicable as a marraige vow, but philosophically, it's no less serious. And it sobered me as the words came out of my mouth. Think of them not as pre-existing words like a poem or a saying, but rather speak them as though you yourself were saying them from your own mind and mindset:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation under God
Indivisible
With liberty and justice for all.

I really don't know what to think about most of America, internally or externally, but I've pledged her my allegiance, and however that shakes out in the future, I've committed to that.

--Clear Ambassador