2010-06-30

Quote: Elizabeth Gilbert

“Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be… a prudent insurance policy.”

Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-06-25

My Girl Friday (#2)

I still believe that "walked" can be true.  But until then I'll keep walking.

Just not in Chucks.
Because we're talking miles here, and one needs some good foot support.

2010-06-22

Video: Chad Overman - "If I Go"






I want to introduce you to a friend of mine; Chad Overman.  
Chad and I were in a community group in San Antonio and at first I could only just tolerate Chad.  For at least three reasons: (1) He just so pretty, (2) when he first went to shake my hand I reached out and he quickly turned his into a fist at the last second for a fist bump...this annoyed me for some reason, and (3) Chad has some long fingernails on his strumming hand which still creep me out.  
But Chad's a great guy who has worked through some tough challenges and has gained some valued wisdom.  After I somehow fell into the role of "leader" for that group I really appreciated Chad's insights and questions, especially when I wasn't as prepared as I should have been.  
Also Chad married a great gal, Jamie.
And his dad was once a motivational speaker!!!  
Here's Chad's video for a song off his upcoming album Songs For The Searchers.  Buy it here.

2010-06-21

Time Comforts

12:34
11:11
10:10
2:22
1:23
3:45
Apparently there are some times of the day that I find really comforting.  Times when all the numbers are the same or when they are in some sort of sequential order just seem better to me.  When I happen to look at a clock and it reads these times I get slightly giddy and all right in the world.
Now if it's a normal time like 1:20 or 12:54 or some other random time that doesn't fit the previously mentioned criteria there's no big.  I can look at the clock and be just fine.  I'm not a freak.
However, if it's 12:33 or 11:10 or 3:44 somethings off.  When the time is just a minute away from one of the comfort times I feel the need to sit and wait until the time changes to a more comforting time.
Please don't think I'm weird.

2010-06-20

Photo: Jus' Checkin'

I completely get this cartoon.  Some days keeping up with all the accounts is exhausting.  However, I still contend that it beats a 100 phone calls and writing out a letter by hand (an excruciatingly painful activity for me).  So I'll keep "jus' checkin'".
(thanks)

2010-06-14

Photo: My Nephew Keaton

This is my nephew Keaton.
How cute is this kid?
In my family we play a game called "Dibs".  The last to call "dibs" has to change the diaper, or give the bath, or wade out through the mud to get the kid.  It's a race with horrible repercussions for the loser.  (We're a real maternal breed.)
"Dibs".

FYI.

Video: What's My Motivation?

This is interesting.


Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

I've been dwelling on those three factors all afternoon.

2010-06-11

My Girl Friday (#1)

I've been thinking for some time that I should probably start putting pen to paper on some thoughts that I don't tend to share much.  But just the thought of actually scribbling something out is cramping my writing hand, so let's just type it up on this here blog.  A lot of times these thoughts just end up floating around in the primordial soup that is my mind and never solidify themselves.  (In fact I'm thinking that I need to establish several blogging thought lines and this might be a good first start.)
I'm going to call these "My Girl Friday" because I'll publish them only on Fridays and because His Girl Friday is a fun movie, which is free to watch at Hulu.
I usually don't share my 'single-and-looking' thinking because I don't want to be one of those obnoxious guys who seem to only think and talk and whine and complain and muse about their singleness.  I loathe the fact that I'll be that guy just on Fridays.  There have been a few of those people in my life and when they begin down this path I generally find an excuse to leave the room.  (And if you find an excuse to not read along with, I'm okay with that.)
Honestly though I necessarily don't mind being single, it affords me many things.  I can decide last minute to not fly to my brother's wedding, but drive cross country and catch a couple of baseball games along the way.  I go to movies when I want, and the movies I want.  I can work late without disappointing anyone.  And so many other scenarios; things that I think Paul would agree with when he wrote about it being better not to marry.
However, while I'm still rocking the single life at age 31, if you would have told me as a child, as a teenager, as a college student, in my twenties that I would be single at this age I would have thought that was nuts.  Maybe it's the wedding season, and the numerous friends getting married this year that is spurring some of this, but truth be told I really do want to be married someday.  I don't think I was meant for singleness.
Let me wrap this post up.
I don't know exactly how this will all look, but we'll figure it out.  Let me know if it get's annoying.

(tbc)

2010-06-07

Story: In Construction

At my brother's wedding recently I was hanging out with some great high school friends of mine.  As it tends to happen stories of days gone by were told.  And we told a lot.  One that my good friend Ryan Charest and I laughed at was about a last minute decision to attend a concert.

[The following story is in no way an endorsement for poor decision making.  If you learn from this you're an idiot and I'm surprised you were able to learn from this.]

Ryan and I had just gotten off a 8 hour shift at the McDonald's we worked at, and because we were always hanging out, we started driving around trying to figure out what kind of trouble we could get into.  Because the crowd of ladies at the local ice cream place didn't seem to capture our attention we decided to attend a concert.
My youth pastor, Bob Cole, had this musician he really liked.  At least he played this Christian artist's music video once a year during a Wednesday night youth group meeting.  But for the life of me I can't remember the artist name.  Neither could Ryan.
The only problem was the concert started in half an hour and Ryan and I needed to swing by my place and find something other than our McDonald's uniform to wear.  Now that I think about it, we actually thought we could successfully hit on girls in our McDonald's gear.  Which only tells you just how cool we were.  Or weren't.
After a quick stop at my house and a quicker change of clothes, we contacted our friend (and youth pastor's son) Brian Cole, and convinced him to join us.  Then like Bo and Luke we skidded across the hood of my 4-cylinder Isuzu I-Mark and headed out.
However, despite our quick stop, our problem only had gotten bigger.  Or shorter.  I don't know.  The concert was in Spearfish, and we were in Rapid City, which according to Google Maps is 48.1 miles away, or 51 minutes.  And we only had 30 minutes to make it in time.  Plus we needed to stop off in Black Hawk (which was along the way) and pick up Brian.
But it wasn't like we were in a hurry.  We didn't really even care about the music, per se.  We were just bored and being late was better than doing nothing.  So as we travel in our nonchalant manner, we were listening to music and singing and laughing and telling stories and just being teenagers.
That is until I looked down and noticed my speedometer.  We were rolling down the road at 115 mph.  I said, "hey guys, we're look how fast we're going."   We marveled at this for about 10 seconds.  Then I noticed something else.  "Hey guys.  We're going 115 in construction."  Yep that's right.  I was driving 115 mph in construction.  I kept going for another minute, because I wanted to continue to look like I intended to be traveling that fast. But then I quickly slowed down to a more respectable speed of, like, 85 mph.
When we arrived at the concert location we learned that we were an hour early.  I swore to myself that I would never speed like that ever again.  That was until a few months later.  But I promise I've only driven that fast twice.
Again I can't remember who the musician was, but Ryan and I did remember that his guitarist name was George.  We could remember because we spent the evening singing between songs, "George. George. George of the jungle.  Friend to you and me.  Watch out for that tree!"  [Remember that? I put the youtube clip at the end to remind you, just in case.]
I don't attempt to explain our behavior, except to say that we were problem strung out on Mellow Yellow and candy cigarettes.
Later we traveled home at a reasonable speed.  As we passed other vehicles we would turn on the dome light in my Isuzu I-Mark and start pumping our arms like we were running past them.  Then while passing what seemed like the 15th vehicle I notice flashing red and blue lights in my rear view mirror.
I started to panic.  I speed up to pull in front of the car we were passing and began to slow down on the shoulder.  "I don't think I speeding.  Is pretending to run past other vehicles with the dome light on illegal?"  None of us knew.
But the state trooper didn't pull me over.  In fact he just sped past me at a ridiculous and unsafe speed.
Now I was scared to death, or at least scared to get a ticket.  I continued on at a slower than speed limit pace.  Then all the cars we had just passed began passing us.  Finally the last car passed us and as it did a middle aged woman flipped on her dome light, pretended to be running past us, stopped, then pointed and laughed at us.  She was awesome!
That's all the story we tell, but I'm sure we ended up crashing in one of our basements and watching Billy Madison.

2010-06-04

#RoadTrip2010 - By The Numbers

7 Days
5 Days of Travel
2590+ miles
$12 total in tolls
9 States
11 stops for gas
1 choco taco
1 wedding
1 cigar
1 1am breakfast
1 trip up and down the Gateway Arch
2 gnomes
1 frisbee golf course w/ 9 holes
2 rounds of frisbee golf
2 frisbee discs found
2 MLB games
25 Runs scored
48 Hits
8 Homeruns
1 Error
1 Movie
1 "best movie theater ever"

Okay, to be honest, I didn't really count things as I went along.  And I can't really think of anything else I could accurately count.  So I'm going to end this list.