New Blog

Check out my other blog. I'm going to be on there more often for the time being.

It is HERE

See ya.

Finally!!!

I finally got my computer!!! I'll try to be posting more often now that I'm back in business. Hopefully, I'll see you tomorrow.

It's Coming...

My laptop should be in next week...hopefully.

And, and update from a previous post. If you live in, or near, Chula Vista, you know the tax increase proposition didn't pass. What that means is our city is in DIRE shape and there will be some substantial cuts. I don't know how much it'll affect me but I should get a feel for it in the next couple of weeks.

Let's hope my computer gets here soon so I can start blogging more, and try to catch up with my fantasy baseball team.

Later.

Status

Having the computer hooked up to the TV monitor sucks!!!

One little item to note: Megan has finally figured out what "Fickle Obsessor" is all about. And she has become one herself!

I'm signing off for a little while but I will be back to posting once my laptop comes in from work (hopefully within the next couple of weeks, but you never know with them).

Until then...see ya!

Tax increase: to vote, or not to vote

Being a government employee in my own city, I often feel torn on voting to increase taxes. This time it's a 1% sales tax increase. If it goes through, I'll be looking at 9.75% sales tax everytime I buy something in Chula Vista! That's ridiculous.

If it doesn't pass, our director's been keeping quiet so I have no idea the impact it will have on our department. I've been told my job's secure but you never really know. I'm fairly certain a few of my co-workers will be laid off. Plus just about all city services will be scaled back tremendously.

On the other hand, is this just a bailout for years of politician's and incompetent city official's mismanagement of funds? I believe the short answer is yes but most if those people are gone. My old neighbor used to be Asst. City Manager and on his way out, he told my boss to prepare for financial collapse in this city. That was over 5 years ago. Apparently this isn't really a new issue but now it's more relevant.

What would you do if you were me?

For you CV residents, how will you vote?

Change

This is only a temporary change to my template. Found a lot of templates that I liked but a lot of the functionality wasn't there so enjoy the nice side of a house in the meantime.

Food

I always wanted to believe that sugar and fat were acquired tastes. "My dad used to give me Hershey's bars when I was a kid so that's why I like them today." Or, "Those fries are gross because I never got used to them as a kid."

I always wanted to believe that was the case so I could blame my taste buds on my parents. But all too often, personal accountability shines up on the marquee.

On a similar note, Megan and I were talking about control and how food consumption is something we have control over. All too often we tend to get carried away trying to make up for a lack of control in other areas of our lives by allowing ourselves to eat unhealthy foods. I never thought of it that way but now I can buy into the theory of how self-confidence can affect your weight (I'd think primarily your diet but exercise as well). If you have a high self-worth, you don't worry about being controlled in other aspects of your life and then focus on keeping control of the things you eat. If you change your outlook on what you eat, and take control of wanting to eat healthy, it should be just as easy to pass on that ice cream sandwich as it is to scarf down those cookies.

Granted, we were discussing this over a bowl of fried potato wedges covered in cheese and bacon, followed by fried cheese filled ravioli and a philly cheese steak sandwich. A change of outlook on life doesn't often come over dinner. It generally takes at least a day to kick in.

On a similar note, our son, Noah, has quite a bit of a problem. Noah is not really a big eater...or an eater at all for that matter. He chooses to get his nutrition through liquid formula, and nothing else. He'll occasionally suck down a few spoonfuls of pureed veges or some yogurt but rarely will he get through an entire "meal". Often, we'll give him something "solid" like pureed carrots and the second it hits his tongue, he starts gagging like it's poison. If it wasn't so frustrating, it would be hilarious. He has, in the past, gagged to the point of throwing all his formula up because a baby puff touched his tongue. I think Noah has taken the control issue to a whole new level.

Let's hope in the near future, he'll decide food isn't all bad.

Brain Pain

For the record, if you didn't already think I was weird...

I don't why, but the other day I started to think about time. What is time really but just something we use to define our life slipping away. It doesn't stick around and wait for us. It doesn't make a comeback when "times" are tough to be "easy".

It's in a never ending perpetual state of motion because if it wasn't...there would be nothing. Everything takes time. It takes me approximately 5.5 seconds to breathe in and breathe out. If time stopped, where would I get my breaths?

My mind is just starting to go crazy...

What really baffles me is God created the heavens and the earth BEFORE time!!! WHAT??? And for non-believers to think that the universe is infinite...just makes my brain hurt. I have a hard time understanding how a little device about 2 inches wide can keep perfect time. How did the people that thought of these ideas come up with this stuff? But to start thinking universally about the expanse of the "timeless" universe makes me want to cry.

I think I'll just try to wrap my head around how a tree can turn into paper. I think I can handle that one.

I've lost my following :(

You stop blogging for only 5 months and everybody bails on you. Fairweather, I tell you!

It's not like I had a huge following or anything...maybe 3 or 4 people. But it's sad to think they are all gone.

Please come back!!! I did!

March 29th Worship Confessional

I normally don't account for the days I lead worship, but today was too fun to not to.

We actually make it out of the house on time, if not early, for the first time in probably years. I'm feeling pretty confident in the songs I'm doing plus I have a great drummer and a professional sound man this morning so with the combination of those two, I can fudge a few things here and there and it should go unnoticed.

I show up and start setting everything up. Last time I led worship, we didn't have any drum mics or extra mic cables so we weren't able to mic up the drums. Today, everything was where it needed to be. I even had extra cables.

I'm almost done setting up my gear when I realize there is no sound guy. It's getting close to 8am so I start calling to no avail. In the meantime, I also notice our drummer's not there either. Start calling him too but goes straight to voicemail. Our sound guy confirmed with our Pastor earlier in the week and our drummer confirmed online about a month ago so I thought everything would be fine.

Finally, it's around 8:30 and Megan and Janae, who were singing, were back at the soundboard trying to find channels that weren't broken so we can actually get sound coming out of the speakers. We finally got everything set up (minus a drummer and an actual sound guy) by 8:45 so we had time to run through one song.

Here were the songs we did:

Romans 12:1
Majestic
Hosanna
The Power of Your Name
God of This City
How Great Is Our God

The front end of the set would have been real drum heavy so it took some concentration on my part to get through those songs. For the Power of Your Name, I made a midi piano and drum track to accompany it and it did wonders in filling out the song and keeping us on tempo. By the way, Megan did an OUTSTANDING job during the solo on it. Absolutely beautiful!!!

Luckily, Steve Scott was able to sit in on djembe the second service and that helped us out a lot. Also, during the sermon of the second service, I see the sound guy that was supposed to be here all morning standing outside talking to another guy. I give him credit for showing up knowing he probably felt pretty bad bailing out on us this morning.

I feel, under the circumstances, I did a decent job but was pretty disappointed that I let some things affect the way I led this morning. Being that I only get to lead worship about once every six months or so, I put a lot of stock in my days on the mic so I add more pressure to myself than is already there. Hopefully, in the future, I can use this day as a tool to improve on my abilities.

A little premature excitement

My last post, I referenced our computer dying. Good news is I had previously acquired a sponsorship from Island's Restaurants for work who gave us a lot more money than I anticipated so now I have money lying around for a work computer. My old boss and I have been harping about the need for me to have a laptop since I'm out in the field quite often and now the time is almost here.

I have to wait for my director to cut me a check and then it's shopping time. Since many people have a key to my office I'd obviously have to bring the computer home every night. Geez... what a burden.

I'm back!!!

At least for a few posts. Timing would have it that I stopped blogging around the time our computer died. Anyway, a little update on our last post.

Most of you know this but we ended up getting a 42" LCD television and HDTV is glorious but WAY underused. We watch so many things on our old school Tivo that we rarely turn on live HD tv. I try to fit in Sportscenter every now and then so I can get my fix of sports and high quality tv, but not even remotely as much as I need to watch it.

Also, I recently purchased a bmx bike off of craigslist to cruise around like a teenager. It's actually a blast to ride one again and it only cost me $20. I had to replace the freewheel so I'm only out $10 extra bucks. I took it for a ride last Saturday out Proctor Valley Road (dirt road a few miles from our place) and rode through the hills above Upper Otay Lakes and down by the dam, and the up Otay Lakes Road back home. Along the way I met up with a 5 foot snake who didn't like me riding so close to him. He struck at me when I went by him, and then again when I went back because the trail just ended. All in all, a good workout and a great time.