This here one's for Dave.

It's a blog. A collection of thoughts and words published on a "web log" housed on the Interwebs. Blogging, one would assume one has something worthwhile to say which s/he wants to share with the world. As I feel I've proven time and time again, this is not necessarily the case with me. I write blogs with little to no purpose. I don't have a whole lot to say, and if I can't say a whole lot of nothing entertainingly or sarcastically, I tend to lapse in my blogging. Thus my recent hiatus. I probably have a lot of thoughts and lots to say, but I guess I just have trouble publishing it on the web for the whole world (read: my handful of readers) to digest and pick apart. A lot of my thoughts are intensely personal, and though I have no problem talking about my thoughts to someone, writing them down seem to make them more... permanant. My thoughts and feelings change like seconds, and I find a lot of times what I've written does not apply even five minutes after I post it. Thus my nonsense.

So, I will continue to post nonsense when the want strikes me. This one is for Dave not for the content, just because he's bugging me to blog. If he wants to read a blog so bad, HE should read one that HE wrote. Start a blogger account, Dave. Pasa-man. You can do it!

I may even twitter. Check me out.

Friday!!

I love Fridays. They mean I don't have to go to work the next day. I don't really have a lot of concrete plans for the weekend, more like a gazillion home projects, some half-started, to get to. I know I need to put new brakes on my car. That'll probably be at the top of my list because I don't want to die. I need to also work on my backyard. It is a forest of overgrowth and neglect, and I would like to reclaim it. There's a bunch of junk back there I need to get rid of, tree stumps to cut down, grass to cut, brush to clear, etc. I also need to fix a wall in the hallway where my freaking dog ate a hole through it to escape the confines of her own room when we were not there. Yes, my dog ate a hole through a flipping wall.

Does anyone want a dog?

I also have a lot of books/computer junk/memorabilia to go through. It's sitting in front of my fireplace downstairs and must be dealt with soon as the weather is getting colder and it is blocking the heat source downstairs.

So many things to do! Such a lazy me! At least the weather is supoosed to be AWESOME this weekend, so I will probably opt for the outside projects, to get them done, and as an added benefit, maybe kick-start me on the road to making myself un-fat.

That's what my weekend is looking like. Super fun, right? How is your weekend shaping up? Big plans? Do tell.

Things to do on a Thursday.

Thursdays, the post-hump day. What to do? Well, depending on your circumstances, your options may be limitless. Me, I have to work. So my options are A) Work. B) Don't work. While option B is much more appealing, option A pays me. And I gots to get paid.

If you have off on Thursdays, like one pastor-friend-guy I know, you could opt to do schoolwork, like he did, but the range of options opens up greatly with no work on Thursdays. You could go for a drive, eat a pizza (which I could do here at work, too, but these are tough economic times, so I will opt for leftovers and a frozen dinner for lunch. I decided this as a result of having options.), or anything else you want to do.

Options are limitless.

Now, after Thursday comes Friday, but I want to focus here on one Friday in particular. This Friday is 10/31/08, or Halloween. This is a very special day this year. Not because it's a pagan holiday or because my church is doing a great community service by holding a fall festival for community kids. This will be awesome, but not as awesome as the other event taking place this day: a chili cook-off at my work. Thousands upon thousands of people (read: about 12) will be bringing their chili A-game this day to battle it out with their coworkers for the title of "best chili maker at work," and possibly earn a small prize.

I am excited because I made awesome chili, so I think I'll be a contender. I am also excited because I love chili, and though mine is pretty bad-donkey, I get to sample the chilings of my compatriots. RAD.

All hail Thursdays.

My options are limitless

Well, not quite limitless, but more limitlesser than they would be if our phones worked here at work. They aren't working, hence, nothing to do.

MY OPTIONS ARE LIMITLESSLIKE!

So I choose to write a blog about not having anything to do, naturally.

Now I am done. 3.5 minutes wasted.

Right on.

I'm Bored

.


















































.

Carcinogenic Diet Coke

I am not a diet soda drinker. Anyone who knows me can attest to that. I just overheard a conversation here at work about the lack of studies of the effects of long-term consumption of large quantities of diet soft drinks. To sum up, my coworker fears he will become victim to a new breed of cancer caused by Diet Coke in his latter years.

That would suck. However, if this new cancer would also allow its victim to fly, I think I would start drinking ten gallons of Diet Coke a day, starting now.

You ask, "So, you would willingly subject yourself to [diet] cancer for the ability to fly?" I answer, "You bet."

Lots-o-Thursdays

If I were keeping good track of my life, I would know that today marks the 1,627th Thursday of my life. That's a freaking huge number.

As of right now, I have been alive for 11,382 days, 19 hours, or:

• 983,474,246 seconds
• 16,391,237 minutes (rounded down)
• 273,187 hours (rounded down)
• 1626 (complete) weeks

What do I have to show for all that time? Dunno. I figure I can knock off the first two years as an "I was a baby and couldn't do anything productive" period. That takes some of the sting out of my non-accomplishments.

Happy flipping Thursday!

What I'm not doing

A couple of my coworkers have decided to undertake the huge and daunting task of writing a book(s). One each, respectively. They are pretty awesome writers and I'm sure they'll do great. I, however, am making the official announcement as of right this moment that I have decided to NOT write a book.

YAY!

Why, you ask? Well, seeing as I can't even write a blog to save my life, I figure trying to come up with literally TENS of pages of cohesive awesomeness that would even slightly intrigue my would-be reader is most likely outside the scope of my ability. Thus, I shall not write a book.

The only way I could possibly pull something like that off is if I wrote a book of poetry. I hate poetry. I like songs, but that's like poetry with music. Poetry without music is dumb. To me, anyway. You can have your own opinion, but mine is the only one I care about in this particular matter.

So there.

No book, no cry.

No
Book
No
Cry

I need to get better at guitar

If anyone wants to jam on guitar (or any other instrument for that matter) with me, please let me know. I need more musical stimulation, and I find I get better every time I play with other people.

Jam with me.

It will be cool.

Updated: New Band Name

"My Left Nostril Is Awesome."

Upsetment...

... is not a word.

Two Blogs

Two blogs, two in a day. What do you say? How much can you pay?

What?
What?
What?

Dag straight, hoss. You KNOW that's right!

Rack 'em up.

F'real. Shamon.

Spirograph

Spirograhs make insanely complex math look easy.

You go, spirograph. Rock on.

Friday Awesomeness - Particle Colliders and the Destruction of EARTH!

I've been reading lately about particle colliders (such as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, AKA a "supercollider"). I am a nerd. The purpose of these thingamabobs is to fire atoms around a HUGE circular tube at near light-speed in opposite directions in hopes that they collide and recreate conditions near to the beginning of the universe. Some people have filed federal lawsuits against these colliders because they fear they will destroy the world by reproducing the conditions at the Big Bang, stating, "the LHC could accidentally create strange new particles that would instantly transform any matter they touched, engulfing the Earth, or, even worse, make a rapidly expanding black hole that could consume the entire planet."

Freakin-A.

I like the Earth. It's my home. It's also the only place I've ever lived. Probably the only place anybody has ever lived, unless you are a Zeta Reticulan. I'm not. I don't think we could really blow up the earth, though. The physics just aren't there. I don't know that we can harness enough power to do that. I would have to wonder why, if we can harness the power to destroy everything that ever existed everywhere by shooting some atoms around a tube, I am paying $4 a gallon for freaking gas? Gasoline:My Wallet. That's the real supercollider.

If destroying the earth has some practical application that benefits me, sign me up. If not, then don't.

I wanted this post to be awesomer, but it's Friday and I'm itching to go home.

Woo WOO

I've written two semi-lengthy posts already in this space. I deleted both of them because they were stupid. I probably have something interesting to write about, but it isn't coming to me now. I give up.

I want to want to write, but lately I just don't.

Fudge.

Indian Giver of me

Sometime in prayer, fessing up to your sins with God can be difficult. Not the sugar coated confession, but the call-it-out-for-what-it-is confession, where spades are spades and the gritty dirty details are painstakingly pried out. Granted, He already knows the details but I think we need to give it up ourselves.

Have you ever been honest enough with God to not only admit you have sinned, but tell Him you plan on doing it again? I have. I don't know if it was a plea for help or what, but I do know that if you want to grow closer to God, you have to give Him everything. I have to assume that everything includes even telling Him I plan on defying Him because I suck and that I hate even having that notion stir in my heart. If there was ever a time when I felt the lightning was going to strike me down, it was then.

If I want to grow in a relationship with God, I can't keep any of me to myself. This isn't exactly the problem. I offer myself to God asking to take all of me and mold me and use me. After about a minute (sometimes as much as an hour!) I snatch myself back so I can go sin some more.

I am an Indian Giver of me.

There is no good thing in me apart from God. Not a single thing.

It is an understatement to say God's grace astounds me. No lightning, just love and forgiveness. And I just don't understand it.

My Next Band (name)

One of my favorite games is to come up with awesome band names for my "next band." Here are a few:

1. Yassir Arafat's New Haircut Club
2. Octal Butt Movers
3. I fractured My Spleen By Loving You
4. Monkeys Make Good Meatloaf
5. Why?
6. Swivel Chairs Make Me Dizzy
7. Which Arm is My Left Arm?
8. Oh, That Arm.
9. My Shoes Are Made of Apple Juice
10. 4
11. 5
12. Enough Fish For Everyone
13. Beards & Wasabi
14. Cups For Hands
15. I can Hear My Toenails

For every one of these I've probably forgot 5,000. If you have any good ideas for band names, post 'em.

Coworkers with kids vs. those without

Conversations about your kids or kids in general at work are like deep, dark secrets: you really need to be careful who you share them with. Trying to tell a story about your kid(s), no matter how awesome the story is, with a coworker who doesn't have kids is like explaining the Internet to a 103-year-old. They don't get it and they don't care. I don't think there's a worse punishment for a coworker without kids than suffering through a kid story.

However, for the coworkers who have kids, especially if their close to the same age, kid stories are awesome. When you think you're going through something unique that no parent has ever seen, and the other parent can totally relate, it is very refreshing. I like talking about my kids to other parents, and I like hearing their horror/hilarious stories as well.

That's all.

Building stairs and a hatred of landscaping.

I've been working on building stairs off my deck. It's a high deck, and previously, there were no stairs, so you couldn't go down to the ground without going back through the house. Super annoying. I love building stuff. Sheds, decks, shelves, anything carpentry-related.

I hate landscaping. I can't do it. My patios are crooked and stupid looking, and I can't level the ground to save my life. I can build a deck square, level and plumb, but I can't reshape the earth if my life depended on it.

Just thought I'd share. If you like to landscape and want to help me out, let me know.

The Art of Forgiveness

I have been analyzing how I pray. I feel like I have been too "me" focused in my prayers, and I think that leads to a very narrow view of the power of God through prayer. One thing I noticed is when I pray, I always ask for forgiveness for each and every sin I confess. This is right and good, but the "why" of me doing this was flipped on its head, I think.

You see, Jesus died on the cross and paid for my sins (and yours, even if you don't believe it). The debt is paid, I am forgiven before the sin. I think I forget too often that I'm forgiven and find myself living in the shadow and guilt of my sins, rather than rejoicing at the grace of forgiveness I've been given.

I'm not at all saying we don't need to ask for forgiveness for our sins. We do, but I found myself asking for forgiveness as if the forgiveness itself was contingent on me asking for it right then. It's a hard thought to explain. I guess I feel like I need to keep the knowledge that I'm already forgiven in the front of my mind, and ask God to help me stop abusing this awesome grace of forgiveness.

I thought of an analogy that sort of works. The way I have been asking for forgiveness is kind of like me asking someone else if I can have my own shirt. I already have my shirt. The other person can't give my shirt, because it's already mine. It's silly. Rather, I should recognize and acknowledge that I've mistreated the shirt I've been given. I've rolled around in the mud and maybe got a mustard stain on it. I need to confess that I've mistreated my shirt, throw it in the washing machine, then ask for help to keep it clean going forward.

That may not make any sense to anyone else, but it was a pretty profound thought to me. So take from it what you will.

Where will my blogs be?

Right here! I'm going to use this as my main blog space instead of my MySpace blog. It feels more gooder and righter here.

Come back often!

Reclamation of Time

It's been a long time since I've felt like my time was mine. Scraping around the bottom of the barrel to muster up a few minutes here and a few minutes there to give to God and my wife. It wasn't working. Between church meetings, praise band practice, special events, I would be home maybe one or two nights a week, feeling trapped by my "service" to the church.

SUFFOCATE!

I recently stepped down from the praise band at my church, which was a very hard thing for me to do, which will require an entirely different post, but simply, I felt God leading me to focus on me growing with my family, not against it, and that can't be bad.

So, this is my first week of not playing with the team, and I will actually get to sit with my wife at church this weekend (albeit in the nursery)!! I'm excited about that.

Unrelated to my decision to leave the praise team, but related in the fact that my pastor was also being suffocated by nightly church meetings almost every weeknight, our church went to a "Meeting Sunday" format, meaning all meetings are going to be held one Sunday afternoon/evening a month, and that's it. No more first Monday, second Tuesday, every Thursday, some Wednesday, etc. meetings. Once a month and BAM, done.

All of the sudden, my time feels like it's actually MY time. It's been a looooong time, and it feels GREAT! I had begun seeing any church-related activity as a wedge driving itself between me and my wife and kids. Don't get me wrong, serving in your local church is important and necessary, but not at the expense of your relationship relationship with your wife. I find myself already being ultra-protective of my time. I have it back and can spend it on what is most important to me, and dole out my time as I see fit rather than wrestling with my schedule trying to cram in yet another event I don't have a day for.

I love it. Be possessive of your time. It may sound selfish, but I like to see it as time stewardship, not selfish... ship?

If you want to see the blog I actually post to:

Go here:

blog.myspace.com/thesobie

Thank you.

Amendment: This is no longer true. I'll be posting here from now on. 5/28/08