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

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!

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

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.
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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.

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

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.

"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

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

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