The Sobie

I haven't blogged in since last time I did.

2010-06-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've written something (shocker). I still don't think I have much to write about, but here's what's been going on with me lately.

I work. A lot. Which is a good thing. I like having employment. I like paychecks.

I'm taking a week off next week to go to the beach with some good friends. Four adults, seven children. Free housing. It is going to be a blast.

I need to recenter/refocus on my music ministry. I feel like the church has taken a back seat to my "real life," which is not a good thing, because my church life is really the most important thing to me after my family. It is also not a good thing when you're trying to get a brand new church off the ground. I am trying not to spread myself too thin between work/family/church, etc. But I feel like I could be putting in a little more time on the church front. I'm terribly afraid of burnout, which may be one reason I'm keeping my distance. I don't know. I am looking forward to the beach as a time to brain-dump and have some good fellowship, fun, sun, relaxation (as much as one can get with seven kids running around) and some reflection.

I know my posts are usually more entertaining than this. I realize this one was quite boring, but at least I got something out and on the Interwebz. Take it or leave it, I'm gonna try to get back into posting more (same ol' story, I know). It makes me happy.

What have you been up to?

p.s. that may have been the horriblest ending to a blog. EVAR.

Focus... draining... must... HEY! Look at THAT!

2010-04-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

When I stopped taking my ADHD medication last year, I freaked out because I thought I'd never get anything done ever again. That was true for a while. I would start a gazillions of projects and never finish any of them (a problem I still struggle with). However, I got very lucky and found a job that in a sense, is tailored to my ADHD. Instead of sitting in the same office all day, every day, doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over, I get to leave the office usually multiple times per day, visiting my clients, fixing problems, making things better, telling people what I think, giving advice, you know, "consulting." Then I get to go somewhere else and do the same thing, but completely different. My brain gets to switch gears, tackle new problems, develop new solutions for different needs. This is great for someone with pretty sever ADHD. I get constant stimulation in normally short bursts, which is perfectly suited to my spastic focusing abilities.

It's not all happy clouds and fluff and rainbows. Some days, my disorder likes to grab me by the face, smack me around and make me pay attention to it (that's a funny statement if you really think about it). Last night, for instance, I could not formulate a complete sentence. It was like all of my thoughts tried to come out at once but no one thought would let any other thought come to fruition. It was a bottleneck gridlock of thoughts. If you spoke to me last night, I probably sounded something like this:

"So, let's go ahead and... We should start by... I'd really like this song to start... ARG! I can't complete a freakin'... must... formulate... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!."

I also just took a break from writing this to access a DHCP server and dance around to a Black Eyed Peas Song.

In conclusion, some days (like today), I am at the mercy of my ADHD, and my ADHD is ruthless today.

I realize there was no point whatsoever to this post. Please forgive me and don't stop reading. My blog, that is.

m

I'm Wearing Glasses and Other Blog Topics

2010-04-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Update: The glasses I'm wearing over there <--- are not, in fact sunglasses. They are 3D glasses from when I took Sebastian to see Monsters vs. Aliens. Do they make me look 3D? Because I feel 3D.
------

I have to wear my glasses today because my left eye hurts. I think it's due either to allergies or a contact lens went rogue and started going crazy with kung-fu or landmines inside my head. Either way. It hurts, so I have to wear my glasses today. This is a horrible thing for one main reason. Sunglasses. The reason I wear contacts today is solely because I wear sunglasses. I don't know if it's because I wear sunglasses so much, but I have very light-sensitive eyes. Even yesterday, during a thunderstorm, I had my sunglasses on driving home because it was too bright to not have them on. So, when I have to wear my normal glasses, I run into a conundrum. There are three options for my day, all of which I don't like and make me want to punch a wall or hyperventilate.

Option 1: Drive to work with no sunglasses and arrive to work in a sunlight-panic and a splitting headache. This is not an option.

Option 2: Wear my sunglasses anyway, just be blind while driving and hope I know my way to work and no small children run out in front of me.

Option 3: Wear my sunglasses OVER my regular glasses, achieving the same basic result, but look like a tool (or more of one, some might say).

As you can see, my life is full of difficult, tough, life altering decisions, and I know you feel bad for me.

OH! The other part of my blog title: Blog Topics. I am determined to write some blogs, and I'm shooting for a few a week. I don't really have a list of topics built up, so I just sit down at my computer and write about the first thing that pops in my head if I don't have ideas already. That is why you got a post today about me wearing glasses. I wanted to see if I could turn it into a whole blog (I did) and make it slightly amusing (probably not).

Um, that's all. I have to go to work now.

m

UPDATE: I ended up putting in my contacts before work, despite the eye-pain. Man, I bet you wish your life was as exciting as mine.

Thunderstorms. More than just awesome. They're a free car wash.

2010-04-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

I was totally stoked as I ran from my office door through the pouring rain to my car this afternoon after work. It had been thunderstorming for about 20 minutes, and it had subsided just enough for me to make a 15-yard dash to my car and only get mildly drenched. As I was running to my car, I actually stopped for a moment in the pouring rain to look at my car and think, "SWEET! It's like all clean and shiny! Check THAT out! FREE CAR WASH! SCORE!"

Then I came back to and got in my car more wet than I needed to be.

It's not that big a deal, but I hate washing cars, and mine hasn't been washed since my last yearly washing probably last June. I also park my car in my garage, so it misses out on all the grime drenching rains. It was getting bad enough that I would wash off a door or my hood with a window squeegee at the gas station just to look like a normal person who washes his car more than once a year.

It was getting so bad coming out of winter and with all the pollen and dust that I was thinking about possibly caving and washing my car this weekend, but thanks to a killer thunderstorm during work hours, I probably just bought myself at least another month or two of wash-free driving.

Bought, for free that is.

You call it laziness, I call it waiting for nature to take care of a problem for me so I don't have to actually do anything myself to resolve it... Yep.

Note to people

2010-04-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

It seems like I am making a return to blogging. Let's see how long it goes. As a warning to my five or so readers, some of my posts will be (hopefully) witty, amusing, and maybe even kind of funny, but I also like to write a lot about my faith. Those ones are usually not so witty or funny. I know a lot of people like their blogs to be always funny or always serious, and a some people don't give two craps (though one should suffice, I think) about my belief in Jesus.

But nevertheless, I encourage you to read it anyway. On one hand because it makes me feel good when I see people visiting my site, and on the other, I just might have something interesting to say on occasion. Maybe. But you won't know if you don't keep checking back.

See, there's already the best of both worlds available this month. If you want to know why I hate all birds, pterodactyls and planes, then read that one. If you want to read about something that's been challenging me personally and maybe might could will challenge you too, then I gots some of that too.

See? I'm diversified. I'm also going to bed now.

-mike

Prove your passion. Shut up and live.

2010-04-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

"Prove your passion. Shut up and live." My friend Lindsay left this as part of a comment to a post I wrote nearly a year ago. Though many things have changed in my life: personal, professional, and church-wise in the last year, this simple statement still rocks me.

Prove your passion. Shut up and live.

Who cares how many people KNOW of your faith? Who cares how many people HEAR me say every week at church how much I love Jesus? Are they seeing Jesus in me, by the way I live, by the way I act, by the way I react, by all my actions, day in and day out?

Probably not. Sometimes, sure. Most times, negative. What a mixed signal we tend to send out. We (read: I) tend to show a little glimpse of what Jesus has done for me, then dive right back into the cesspool of the world. They saw a little bit of Jesus, right? That should be good. Maybe I'll show a little more next week.

So to me I say: "Mike, prove your passion. Shut up and live." Not so easy when you're accountable is it? Nope. But it's eternally worth it.

A Handy How-To Guide On How To Learn To Hate Everything Winged In The World In 16 Super-Easy Steps

2010-04-24T05:11:00.001-07:00

1. Eat cheese pizza-flavored Bagel Bites® immediately before bed.

2. Go to bed.

3. Get indigestion.

4. Have indigestion-induced crazy dreams about playing music on your guitar, but all your music and words are getting sucked up through a vent in a suspended ceiling (you know, like one of those ceilings that has the foam tiles with space above them) and swirling around up there, so naturally I have to get a ladder and get up there to free my music for the world to hear, but when I lift one of the ceiling tiles and stick my head up there, it gets stuck in the ceiling. It must have been a magic ceiling because I don't recall my head actually touching anything in the ceiling, I just couldn't pull it down through the air. **As a side note, of all the things that already make so much sense about this dream, I don't know why I decided to fixate on my head being caught in thin air inside a suspended ceiling.**

Then the dream cuts to a big park where a church fair is going on. In the middle of the park there is a huge slot car track. Actually, this may have been the only attraction at the church fair, and some faceless kids and I may have been the only ones there, so I'm not sure how I was so sure it was a church fair, but I was. Anyway, at first, the slot car track had big animals, like the metal animals you sit on at parks that have the big springs in their bellies driven into the ground so you can bounce all around. Well, they were attached to this slot car track, I don't know how, and you could ride them around the rack. Then, suddenly, what should have been slot cars became actual slot cars, but instead of remote controls to make them go, there were long sticks attached to each one, and you had to push them around the track yourself. What a rip.

5. Abruptly wake up.

6. Realize you were dreaming, then writhe in pain for a few minutes as heartburn drop-kicks you in the face.

7. Get up, pee, eat a Tums, go out to the kitchen to get some milk, go back to bed.

8. Check the clock. See that it is 2:19 AM.

9. Hear a stupid songbird outside.

10. Think for a second, then realize that birds are not allowed to start making noise until after 4:00 AM. Get mildly annoyed.

11. Listen for about 10 minutes to the stupid bird continue to sing, "HI I'M A STUPID BIRD! I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE AWAKE SO I EITHER HAVE INSOMNIA OR I'M RETARDED BUT EITHER WAY I'M SO HAPPY I'M GOING TO SING A SONG. CAN ANYONE HEAR ME? NO? NO MATTER. I'M HAPPY! LALALALALALALALA HAPPY SING SING SING IT'S SO DARK OUTSIDE HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY I'M A STUPID BIRD! I THOUGHT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIGHTER OUTSIDE WHEN I START SINGING...."

12. Yes, bird. It is.

13. Begin developing a burning hatred for this bird in particular.

14. After 45 minutes, hear the bird finally stop singing, but realize it is getting dangerously close to the time when other stupid birds are going to start singing.

15. Still be unable to fall asleep because you're shaking with rage because you hate birds so much now and you never hated anything this much in your life before this moment.

16. Finally fall asleep, but with a newly found hatred for anything with wings in the world, ever. This includes you, planes and pterodactyls.

See? Now you, too can develop a burning, irrational hatred of anything and everything with wings, JUST LIKE ME!! The best part is, you can even vary the method a little. I like to think of steps 1-4 as guidelines. For instance, if you do not have any cheese pizza Bagel Bites®, you could probably drink a pint of Tabasco sauce. You may also not have the exact same dream as I do, but I am pretty convinced that any indigestion-induced crazy dream that wrenches you out of sleep in the middle of the night and enrages you will probably suffice.

Probably.

There you have it.

Simple.

Thanks for reading.

- Mike

I have a gazillions of unfinished blogs

2009-06-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have so many half-written blogs. Some totally unwritten, but I will call them half-written because they are ideas, and blogs have to start somewhere, right?

I may try to actually finish a bl

Awesome Idea: Magnetic Tea

2009-05-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Think about it. What if your brewing tea leaves were magnetic? That would be the PERFECT solution to the age-old problem of filtering/straining. No more would stray bits of tea leaves sneak into your cup and subsequently find their way directly between your teeth. You could steep your loose tea in the pot/glass/kettle/whatever, then simply apply a magnet to the bottom or side to keep the tea leaves from entering your drink.

Then, one could invest electromagnetic teapots, where you could flip a switch and magnetize the the teapot, removing tea leaves from the water with a flip of the switch.

INGENIOUS!

Yes, it is. Shut it.

Untitled

2009-05-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt on the cusp of a huge, life-changing realization or decision, but you can't quite throw yourself over the edge? I feel that way right now, though it's not exactly that, either. Feelings are so complex and dumb. Here's the deal, and as a disclaimer, this is a post about my faith, so if you're tired of reading about that, stop now.

I can sum it all up like this: What the crap am I doing?! I'm tired of being lukewarm. Lukewarm in my bible reading, lukewarm in my relationships, lukewarm in my marriage, lukewarm in my faith, lukewarm in my church. It's annoying, and more importantly, it's WRONG.

Revelation 3:15-16 states, "¹⁵I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

Ouch.

Christ gives us two commandments to live by: love God and love others. Not just love others like, "I'll love you the best I can," but He said, "As I have loved you, love one another." That's a whole other ball game. Love like Jesus loved? But I'm so selfish!

And there it is. My problem. I am self-centered and selfish, and I hate that about myself, but I also like it. In order to lay down my life and pick up my cross to follow Jesus, I have to lay ME down, and I don't want to. I need to, and my biggest desire is to live my life on the path God lays before me, with no regard for my own wants and desires, because I know true happiness comes by living for God and God alone. But I don't want to give up my wants and desires. I strain so many relationships with my selfishness, and I know this.

So my question is, how do I get over myself? I don't want to do this anymore. Let me be hot or cold, but never again room-temperature.

There are a few other convictions about my faith and the church pounding at me lately, too, but I'll save those for another rant.

Now I will post without reading what I've written. I'm keepin' it real.

There's a blog I want to write

2009-05-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

... BUT I CAN'T! I'm not allowed. When I can, I will. But for now, I must stew in my misery and you will have to wait to read it (or not read it).

BAH!

I think I'm winning my work March Madness tourney.

2009-03-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am a basketball god. ish.

Have a Facebook? I write stuff there now, too.

2009-01-31T05:54:00.000-08:00

That's all.

A blog. Ab Log. Abl Og. Ablo, G!

2009-01-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

This is a blog. I haven't written one in a while.

I'vebloggggedtoday.

Yours Truly,

Michael

This here one's for Dave.

2008-12-05T19:30:00.000-08:00

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!!

2008-10-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-10-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-25T13:27:00.001-07:00

.

.

Carcinogenic Diet Coke

2008-09-25T08:41:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-23T12:49:00.001-07:00

"My Left Nostril Is Awesome."

Upsetment...

2008-07-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

... is not a word.

Two Blogs

2008-07-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

Spirograhs make insanely complex math look easy.

You go, spirograph. Rock on.

Friday Awesomeness - Particle Colliders and the Destruction of EARTH!

2008-07-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-06-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-05-28T12:30:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

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:

2008-05-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

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

I totally forgot I had a blogger account

2007-06-19T13:07:00.001-07:00

... That's all.

Mere Sobieanity.

2005-09-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hang on... I'm coming up with someting witty and sweet to write. Give me a minute...

Because I worry too much...

2005-05-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

Matthew 6:25-34

Do Not Worry

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]?

²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

This is my blog.

2005-05-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

Today I created an account on blogger.com. I'm not sure what else to write about. We'll see what happens...