"Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going."

- Paul Theroux

This band just pumps me up!
I'm not the biggest fan of their music, but seeing them live was one of my top five concert experiences so far!
Also, this video is pretty tight.

"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see."

- G.K. Chesterton

I forgot to post on Friday, so I'll give you two videos today! I hope we can still be friends.

I want to go to Iceland pretty much more than any other place in the world! Absolutely stunning scenery!

"What charm can anyone find in an excursion when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the eases and comfort he can enjoy in his own home! One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the want of any sudden surprise, and the absence of all adventures. Everything is so well arranged."

- Theophile Gautier in Wanderings in Spain

Good for you Joey!

"Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks, mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all kinds of unpleasant experiences ... They say to themselves, for example, 'So this is what an earthquake is like,' and it gives them pleasure to have their knowledge of the world increased by this new item."

- Bertrand Russell

I've never really been into fruitbooting, but hanging out with Kurt Rose is making me mock it a little less.

"Dare yourself to do simple things you normally wouldn't consider - whether this means exploring a random canyon, taking up an invitation to dine with a stranger, or just stopping all activity to experience a moment more fully"

 - Rolf Potts in Vagabonding p.141

I still dream of learning how to break dance. Maybe once day I'll actually do it. We'll see.

Here is something I found to be true: you don’t start processing death until you turn thirty. I live in visions, for instance, and they are cast out some fifty years, and just now, just last year I realized my visions were cast too far, they were out beyond my life span. It frightened me to think of it, that I passed up an early marriage or children to write these silly books, that I bought the lie that the academic life had to be separate from relational experience, as though God only wanted us to learn cognitive ideas, as if the heart of a man were only created to resonate with movies. No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath:

I’ll tell you how the sun rose

A ribbon at a time . . .

It’s a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn’t matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.

- an excerpt from Donald Miller's book, Through Painted Deserts

found on Donald Miller's Blog

This made me go just wow.

"it's hard to sympathize with a First World traveler who squeezes another month out of a Third World country by sleeping in the forest and hitching rides. (Better to spend that month back home sacking groceries and saving up for a trip that benefits local bus drivers and hotel maids.)"

- Rolf Potts in Vagabonding p.121

Well this is embarassing, but kind of fun at the same time.
My friend Davey is getting good at making videos!

I finally finished reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. All in all, it took me 3 months to read, not because I'm a slow reader, but it's just a really heavy book. Bonhoeffer is straight up way smarter than me!

If you're up for a challenge (or smarter than me in general), I HIGHLY recommend reading this book. If you're not up for such a challenge, I'd recommend you find a way to read his chapters titled "Costly Grace" and "The Visible Community." There's enough meat in those two chapters alone to get your mind churning!

"People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home."

- Dagobert Runes

Even after shooting them all summer, I still like weddings.

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."

- Lao-Tzu in The Way of Life

The bass player was one of my closest friends in highschool. Look at him becoming a rock star!

Kingsfoil, check them out!

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?
Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?

Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
Those who refuse to gossip
or harm their neighbors
or speak evil of their friends.
Those who despise flagrant sinners,
and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,
and keep their promises even when it hurts.
Those who lend money without charging interest,
and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.

Such people will stand firm forever.

- Psalm 15

"Cities are full of those who have been caught in monthly payments for avocado green furniture sets."

- Laurel Lee in Godspeed

another joel.witwer original!

"Travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: On the road, we often live more simply, with no more possessions than we can carry, and surrendering ourselves to chance. This is what Camus meant when he said that 'what gives value to travel is fear' - disruption, in other words (or emancipation), from circumstance, and all the habits behind which we hide"

- Pico Iyer in Why We Travel

a joel.witwer original

Over the past year, I've developed a pretty steady camera hand meaning that I can achieve smooth motion shots that look decent. Even as good as I've gotten, nothing I do can match the quality of motion that you can get with a glide/steady cam mount. This said, yesterday, I found a filter in Final Cut Pro called "smooth cam" which, mixed with my steady-ish hand, can make it look like I am using highly expensive and specialized gear!

In the video above, the clip on the left is my raw footage and the clip on the right is the footage filtered with "smooth cam." The difference isn't HUGE, but it's all the little things that go together to take my video making skills to the next level!

"America is famous for its unhappy rich people."

- Rolf Potts in Vagabonding p.31

The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones that do.

"neither self nor wealth can be measured in terms of what you consume or own."

 - Rolf Potts in Vagabonding p.31

It turns out that there's some pretty cool stuff going on outside.

"You know that their greed and violence have tried to silence your worships and frustrate your witnesses in church, schools, and hospitals. You have discovered that it is not the buildings that make a true church but the true foundations on which your lives are built."

– Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

"Great and marvelous are your works,
O Lord God, the Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
O King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come and worship before you,
for you righteous deeds have been revealed."

- Revelation 15:3 & 4 (NLT)

I already found my goal for next summer.

I love this woman.

"When a pony does a good deed, he gets a horn and becomes a unicorn and he poops out cotton candy until he forgets he's magical and then his horn falls off and black unicorns, they become zebras."

- Brittany on Glee

This is why I want a chipmunk.

Vietnam anyone?