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

Awesome Idea: Magnetic Tea

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

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

... 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.

I am a basketball god. ish.

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

That's all.

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

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

I'vebloggggedtoday.

Yours Truly,

Michael

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

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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."