Chance happening

Not sure what's brought me back here today, but here I am.  It's been forever since I last posted.  I'm not sure sometimes why I keep this thing open, but at one point in time it was useful/cathartic/fun/etc.  Not that it isn't those things, but man, I just haven't felt the desire lately (like in the last 7 years).  There are a lot of blogs and bloggers out there that are much better/interesting than mine as well as those which are simply terrible.  I'm not sure where this one fits in between the poles of fantastic and fodder, but hopefully somewhere securely in the middle.  Well, if you stumble across this as a former reader, I'm still alive.  If you're new to IFJ, welcome.  As there isn't much between 2005-2013, I encourage you to look back upon a time in my life where this was a part of my everyday.  Maybe it will be again someday, who knows.  (No promises!)  Until next time...

The Plight of the Mythological Creature

In thinking about storybook creatures and those of folklore, several really cool ones come to mind. Griffins, unicorns, and jackalopes are just a few. But being a dragon would be pretty cool on most days. You'd have a really cool coat of scales, most fly and breathe fire, and to live in a lair with heaping mounds of gold coins and jewels as a couch beats Cribs and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition with a stick! Most days you just sit around at home and occasionlly entertain visitors (afterwhich, you eat), and sometimes you go fly about and set things on fire, like trees and villages and whatnot. But there's days where being a dragon wouldn't be so cool. Torch bearing mobs shouting at the mouth of the lair, guys with armor piercing arrows taking cheapshots at you when you're trying to exercise, and the stares you'd get from the general public when you go into town for a coffee. Today is kinda one of those days for me. I feel like I'm a-draggin'. Get it? There's my witty, blogger play on words for the day. A Midnight ambulance run and general restless sleep otherwise with all that's on my plate for the day has got me running pretty slowly thus far. I'm hoping for better things later on.

Forming a Habit

There was a time, as evidenced by my earliest posts here, that this chunk of space in the www was well tended and flourishing. As with most things, especially my things, one thing led to another and something else pressing came up and the blog entry got pushed aside one too many times. You know how it goes. Anyhoo, I'm hoping ("yeah, you said that 3 years ago!") to be more regular about this. I think it's fun and, after reading over my early posts, gives me some clues as to where I've been and where I need to be. While I probably won't be habitual or "religious" about it (I need to be more religious about so many other things...including religion!), I hope to be more regular. So Frank, Eric, you in the sweats..., and the rest of you who accidentally happen upon these entries, enjoy this one (and the ones to follow) for what it's worth.

A modest reply

Alright,
I got razzed a couple weeks ago when my father- and brother-in-law found my blog and saw that I hadn't made a post in over 2 years! 'Tis true, loyal readers, I've been bad. Hopefully, I can make it up to you...I'm not sure how I'll go about doing that, though. Anyways, for those of you who have been anxiously awaiting my latest post (the guy who's not moved from his computer room since Vista sounded like a good idea, before Bieber-fever took the world by storm, and tweets were only made by birds is going to be thrilled!), here's what you've missed.

MA in Contemporary Theology in May of 2008
New England trip-Summer 2009
started driving an amblulance-October 2009
Turned 30-May 2010
became an iPhone owner-Christmas 2010
sold my house-March 2011

There you go. Now you're all caught up. I hope you feel better now. And you, sir, Mr. Loyal Reader, can go change your clothes, clean up a little, step outside and get some fresh air. Your family misses you. And you're weirding me out, a little.

Mini Me

The resemblance is uncanny! I think the little guy's going to go places!

Falling apart, getting old

We talked about death last night at our high school youth group meeting. It was a good meeting but a little weird. I find it easier to talk about other people dying than actually confronting my own mortality. But I've been put in a position where that (my frail, humanness) has been on my mind more lately. I recently had some blood tests conducted to screen for anything that might be the source of some pain that I've been dealing with over the last few months. Starting in the summer, it was my knees. I did something dumb in the fall and hurt my toe. Well, it still hurts. Seemingly without reason, my shoulder and jaw have been hurting over the last month. Headaches have also been more frequent in the past couple months. Well, the initial tests came back negative for everything that my doc was testing for. I'm still scheduled to see a rheumatologist (look it up) on Jan. 24 for some further testing. But that's where I'm at now. Hopefully, sometime soon the bottom will be gotten to and this chapter in my life will close. For now, I'm just praying that nothing serious is wrong and that whatever I find out, I can deal with it.

Sorry it's been a while.

Bad to Good

Wow. Yesterday really started out bad. First, I learned that I had misplaced or not saved the revisions that I had done last week on my thesis! For a couple seconds, I was ready to quit (but just a couple. It wasn't like I had lost 70 pages or anything). Then, (actually before the other thing) another incident occurred, the details of which I can't really discuss openly. It completely caught me off guard, but it made me mad. Like, the most mad I had been in a long time! It takes a lot to get me mad, but I was ready to throw down! Or throw in the towel. Being mad is such a weird feeling. It's like being charged with adrenaline, being really motivated & focused, but not able to control the focus. It controls you. I was wide-eyed, my heart was racing, I felt tense like I just needed to do something active or I was going to explode. (Weird, huh?) Anyways, I ran into Fred, one of my fave professors, who's also becoming a good friend, and he gave me some wise counsel about how to deal with it. He told me to respond in love, grace, and humility, and not react out of charged-up rage like I wanted to. In retaliating, or even trying to defend myself to my accusers, I would lose in the long run, he told me. So, after that, I calmed down (even more by that point), finished my re-revisions, and headed home feeling better. Laura also got word that she'd been offered not one, but two new jobs watching triplets! So, she was then in a good position to choose between two really good options. It's neat how God works sometimes. I wasn't expecting either of those scenarios to occur, but they did and we saw God's hand in the results. So , the moral of the story is, even though it might feel good to use your hands to solve your problems, leave room so God can use his to solve it right. (You have to use fewer ice packs that way!)