OK here's the difference between right now and a couple of months ago before I was sentenced to this gulag of a project: before this I had time to complain about how little time I had outside of work.

Now, my schedule is essentially sleep, work, eat, repeat. Period.

Everything, just everything, has been dropped so that I can work. The only luxuries I'm taking at this point beyond the necessities of sleep and food is the time I take to shower in the morning and listen to the radio on the way to work. I can't do dry cleaning, I can't do laundry, I can't write, I can't read, I can't watch TV, I definitely haven't worked out in weeks, I can't keep in touch with people (although I'm making a concerted effort from work with a few), and I can't prepare a decent meal. I can't find 5 minutes to search for new projects, which it was agreed upon that I'd be doing in the first place when I came to this role. I certainly can't relax, which is what I should be doing with the 2 or so weeks that I actually don't have youth group to worry about before the school year starts again.

And worst of all I am spiritually drained. First this project ate through my physical stamina, then my mental, and now it feasts on what little I have left. And its now that I realize that I can't complain, either. Because I don't have time to do that, either. But more importantly, because in some sense I had no choice to go onto this project, but in another, this is the line of work I've decided to go into. At any point I could quit, but instead I've quietly gone along with an oppressive workload instead of refusing it.

Theoretically its all supposed to end tomorrow night when I work my last day shift, but I doubt that it will be that easy, as things are not settled and the client is certainly not ready to lose the full support team.

This is where I am. This is why I have not even been able to recap my trip to New Orleans at this point. I'm aiming for something decent by Monday of next week, with pictures, but based on my predictions lately...you do the math.

The ballet people are champagne drinkers; a younger, more exciting crowd than the opera people. - Walter Nurena

This is mainly a tribute to my new found appreciation for Flickr, to some extent. And my enduring appreciation for ballet. And a cryptic self reminder to mention this quote to a ballerina that doesn't read my blog. And a reminder to myself that sooner or later I need to get a decent post up, now that its been more than a couple of weeks...

I'm back safe. Hope to get a recap post up tomorrow before I start working night shifts again, tomorrow night. Otherwise, I'll get it up when...I start working night shifts again, tomorrow night. In the meantime, here's a picture of the team, before we left last Saturday.

Why is it that I can't even stand to watch the trailers for Stone's WTC movie when they come on? I mean I literally have to change the channel, because seeing the shadow of an airliner flash across a Tribeca building makes me physically ill. It just all seems so wrong - Flight 93, now this...complete capitalization on the most horrible event of my generation.

I've never liked going down there, taking the Path to downtown makes me uncomfortable every time. I mean, its the biggest tourist attraction in the city. Hundreds of street vendors still making a living off of it. And now Hollywood needs to get their cut. Makes me sick.

Don't get me wrong, history needs its proper memorials, but these are clearly not it. A better example? Saving Private Ryan. Amistad. Schindler's List. Movies that weren't trying to make a buck off of horrible events in human history so much as tell the real story and make people remember. Neither of the 9/11 movies are trying to do that. I doubt many 9/11 movies will be able to do that, for years to come.

I've linked to it before, but I'm still interested in seeing The Great New Wonderful. This looks like a real movie for a real (good) reason.

Its morbid.

And yet stuff like Falling Man is fascinating to me. Because its the real, raw history. Its not commercialized.

Anyway, that said, I'm off to New Orleans for the week, as of tomorrow morning. Doubtful you'll see a blog post before next weekend, and even that will be difficult - as my work week will start Sunday evening on that weekend. Please keep me and the kids and the other leaders in your prayers.

This is Ozzie and Harriet. You can guess which is which. I picked them up at Ikea the other week as kind of a birthday present to myself. I figured I'm officially killing off my late 20's now so I should give having kids another shot. That's how I refer to keeping plants alive - its like having kids practice for the bachelor. They require periodic attention and nurture. Yes, I realize they require less than a normal child. But the basic underlying precept remains the same: I and no one else am responsible for either their life or death. My goal is to keep them alive until I move, which I suspect will be some time next year, either for school or necessity of a newly married roommate - who knows which would come first, if either.

Well, the school part better come one way or another. When you work a 15 hour day and come home in time to eat, sleep, and start it all over again, you find about 2 minutes, somewhere around the point you're stripping out of the work clothes and changing into sleeping garb, to wonder why it is that you can't meet someone nice to come home to and bitch about your day. When the only thing that didn't go wrong, right down to the 15 minutes you had to spend looking for parking after driving home from work, is the fact that you didn't find out that you *didn't* get promoted. Or worse yet, why you can't meet someone to come home to and tell that you got promoted. (Pray Lord let it be.)

I find out in the next week or two.

Basically it will determine exactly when and how hard I start pursuing my enrollment in a school for next year. If I do get the promotion, I figure I'll sock it out for a year, and hit school next fall if things work out smoothly, maybe wait 6 months past then and start the following spring - basically get some experience at the next level on my resume. If I don't get it, I'll be filling out applications starting the following weekend. No point in staying somewhere that isn't going to put you where you should be, isn't going to maximize your potential. That's right, I said it.

So anyway, other things I got for my birthday (from people other than myself) included, from the fam:


Which I have wanted for so very, very long. And this:


Which Mom loved, along with the accompanying documentary. And from the grandparents, the best table game of all time:


Oink.

That's it. That's all the presents I got - parents and grandparents. This is what happens when you get old. I remember reading in the 5 Love Languages that gifts or giving gifts or something like that is one of the languages, and I'm like 98% sure that its mine, along with a small mix of one of the others - words of affirmation. Problem is, it hardly seems to be anyone else's.

Well I blogged through last weekend and so didn't have much to blog about on Monday, and then it was Tuesday and all of a sudden its Sunday night.

Started working on Wednesday of last week, Friday morning I went to work and by the end of the day I could barely breath, my throat was so swollen. So, I had to get that taken care of. Saturday I didn't go in, but I did get over to Matt's in the afternoon after I woke up and ganked a Zithromax off him - they have a powder-in-a-bottle version now that you just add water to and guzzle. Then I came home, had another gallon of soup, and crashed again.

Today was church - for our commissioning for the missions team, then right back to work. Had a good conversation with the manager I'm actually enjoying working with, because he's cool. Might end up staying on this project and taking on a manager role, if nothing comes up in retail.

Going to work tomorrow and Tuesday, maybe a bit of Wednesday too, then I think I'm going to hit the beach for a day or two before we take off for New Orleans.

This week - a half-decent links post and the *original* Snakes on a Plane story (long story short - I had this idea years ago).

P.S. Football is in the air. Hall of fame game. Eagles and Raiders - I couldn't possibly care less, but I do hear Madden's voice and men hitting each other at high speeds in the background, and that makes me happy. Fall's coming. Joy.

Blogger says this is post # 500 for me, but as I've said before, Blogger's count is way off, I've done a good number more than that.

Spent the evening playing a rousing game of Pass the Pigs with the gang - Mossy sent it to me for my birthday, its basically the best game ever. Swine and gambling. Some guy some where is sitting on his own private beach because he thought of that before I could. Some day I'm going to think of something somebody else never had, and then I'll have my own beach, too. Maybe. It will probably involve swine.

Didn't sleep much as I'm still on the night shifts schedule, and then it was meetings all morning, and after lunch as well. Then free time. We're at a resort type place so I decided to spring for my first ever massage.

I swear between that and the sushi I'm becoming a full-fledged fru-fru adult. Ugh. I need to go skiing or wakeboarding or something, right quick.

Anyway it really didn't do that much for me. I told her a good 4 times she could use more pressure, and she did, but it never seemed like it was quite doing the trick. Very relaxing, but not the deep muscle kneading I was really hoping for. I'm thinking perhaps I need one of those small asian women walking around on my back to really do the trick. Maybe I was spoiled by Jen the chiropractor's daughter. Anyway it was weird to have someone touch you so much, after so many years with next to no touch at all.

Tonight is dinner and more meetings, hopefully a half decent night's sleep before tomorrow morning's worship / meetings / driving back to the city.

Later...

Dinner was burgers from the grill, then more meetings till late this evening, where more pigs were passed. Right now everyone's alseep, and I'm probably the only human being awake in about 20 miles. Which is a distinctly different feeling from being awake in the middle of the night with a couple million people in the same predicament within that same radius.

Tomorrow we're hiking up some hill for a "mountain-top" morning deal (there are no mountains in Pennsylvania), then driving back in the afternoon. I like driving through Penn. because you pick up a lot of country stations, and although I don't know most of the songs anymore, I still enjoy driving long highways while listening to country.

Off to middle of nowhere Pennsylvania for the weekend. Youth leaders annual summer planning retreat. Why we needed to drive this far from the city to do it is beyond me. We're in the middle of the woods and this place doesn't even have a pool. I guess we'll be focused at least. I'm voting that we return to the beach location next year.

Worked the first part of the week then took last night off as it was the annual summer social for the New York office - they rent out a club and we all do our best to drink / party them into the ground. This time was at Pacha - really weird joint on the far west side, but it was good to see old faces and meet some new ones. I knew my sleep schedule was going to be screwed up for the weekend - I had woken up in the afternoon with just enough time to shower and head to the club - so I decided to be good and not after-party with the masses. All the same, I only got about 3 hours sleep and I was wide awake at 4am this morning. Waited for the world to wake up then I went and got some shopping done and had yet another sushi lunch at Whole Foods. Kinda growing on me.

Came home with all the good intentions of putting together the new dresser I picked up at Ikea earlier in the week, and instead finished my latest Netflix - Running Scared - and took a nap. It was thunderstorming out so it was perfect weather for sleeping on the couch. Woke up, packed, picked up Russ, Libby, and Liane at the Path, and we made the drive out here.

I'm supposed to be leading worship this weekend but my guitar practice has been about as dead as my worship practices lately, with this idiotic work schedule, so I'm feeling particularly under-prepared for that. Sometimes the only prayer I can muster is asking for the desire to pray more. If God meets us where we're most lost, I should be finding Him pretty soon, I figure.

In his heart a man plans his course,
but the Lord determines his steps.
- Proverbs 16:9

When I was growing up - a kid, a teenager - I always thought I'd marry in my early 20's. Mom and Dad married in their early 20's. So did everyone else's moms and dads. When I went to weddings, that's how old the people getting married were - early 20's. By my late 20's I'd be entering parenthood, perhaps even twice over. I'd have a house and a couple cars. And a couple dogs. I'd be happily married.

This was the way the world worked, and this was my reality. This was how my life was going to be.

I still remember the first day of college. My aunt drops me off, gives me some cash, made a wise remark about how I probably was more than ready for her to leave, and then she took off. And I was left there, surrounded by a couple thousand mostly Christian girls. For the next 4 years.

How I screwed that one up, I'll never know. And yet somehow, before it all began, I already knew...

Later that morning at the first general assembly, the ancient dean of students crowed for us her centuries old mantra: "Look to your left, look to your right, your future mate may be in sight." Or something similar. It rhymed, I remember that much. She told us 80% of us would marry a fellow student of the institution. For many of us, that meant that, although we hadn't met them yet, our future mate was sitting in the same nervous room with us, at that very moment. Probably with their parents still sitting next to them too, helping them make their way through day 1. Not me, though - I was on my own, standing in the back of the auditorium, not knowing a soul in the room, and ready to do this college thing. And I was also vehemently opposed to the idea that I would be marrying someone I met there.

To this day, I don't know why that was. Perhaps it was just the rebellious streak I was on at that age - I wouldn't be grouped with the herd - I suppose. But, deep down, somewhere, I knew that my future mate wasn't going to be someone from the 4 years to come. I knew it right then and there. And time would prove me right. But it still took time for my preconceptions about my future to change.

Being surrounded by that many girls, and being free from an upbringing that had made girls all but taboo, and being the generally attractive single guy I was, I was soon dating. I enjoyed it, having a girl actually interested in you as a person - you above any other guy walking around that place. Someone to sit with at breakfast. Someone to go to the movies with, someone to study with. Someone to talk to on the phone when you were lying on your bed falling asleep, a few hundred yards away from her on hers. It was nice. And I still knew that I wouldn't be marrying someone from there. I had my doubts at times - but for the most part it was straight knowledge, strong as the first day, standing alone in the back of that auditorium. I think maybe it was somewhere around the middle of my college experience when I first started to realize that I might be in my mid-twenties when I was getting married, not the early 20's I had always imagined.

Pretty soon college spat me out, the same way it took me in - completely alone and ready to take on the next thing coming my way. Senior year went way south for me in the relationship realm - you can't go much lower than a painful breakup with the girl of your dreams. For one thing, you learn to stop having those kind of dreams.

I knew coming out of that storm that I needed to be single for a while just to get back to a healthy emotional state. I had been pretty heavily invested, so it took me a while - maybe a year or two. Not more than two, I don't think.

Around the end of that second year out of college, I moved to the NYC area and began another new chapter. Still alone. Busy with life. Not really thinking about the fact that I was fast burning through my mid twenties. And then they were gone.

I woke up this morning and I was 28. Officially in my late twenties, and as alone as I was 6 years ago leaving college, and as I was 10 years ago starting college. Every bit as far from where I thought I'd be in life as I was from it back then, before reaching the preconceived age. Probably a lot further. I'm not saying I wish things had worked out differently - I wasn't nearly ready for marriage in my early 20's. But now I sometimes wonder in passing whether or not I'll be married in my early 30's. There's almost zero chance it would happen before then, and if it doesn't happen by then, chances are it won't happen at all. Now, 10 years wiser than I was when I knew there was no one in that auditorium for me, I wonder if there's anyone out there for me at all. I don't know if there is or not.

Somehow I'm ok with that. Its not an easy thing to explain, quite frankly. I am content with life, but I still feel there is something missing - and not in that way like I'm missing out on High Def television or a leather couch or something else I could go out and buy. Something missing in that way that makes each life experience - waking up, going to work, eating and drinking, relaxing and playing, going to sleep - makes each of them feel somewhat incomplete. And I believe they really are, because we get the most complete joy out of anything when we can share it with someone.

Now, even if there is someone out there, it will be different from what I always had imagined. There won't be the more carefree vitality and animated passion of young love. I'll be older, I'll have seen more of the world, I'll have been an adult on my own - longer than my parents ever were. And unless she's a younger girl, she'll likely be much the same way. Its like this: the other day I sat on the side of my bed and put my shoes on the way I always sit on the side of my bed and put my shoes on. And then it just kind of hit me - I realized that, if she's out there, she'll likely never lay there and watch me and love the fact that this is just what I do - the way she might have if she had been with me through the twenties and seen me sit there to put my shoes on every day. She'll have her own things like that too - maybe the way she puts her makeup on or answers the phone or folds the laundry - things that I might never stop to love and appreciate about her because we missed younger years together. We'll have missed out on at least some of what we might have imagined.

You do lose your imagination with age. I never used to believe it - its just a little at first but then it starts to go faster. Reality replaces it - cold, hard reality. You realize that your ideas about the future are probably much more accurate, but you also realize something else important. You realize that the you of 10 years ago had absolutely no idea where you would be in 10 years. And dangerous hope springs from this, because that means the you of right now might just - despite all its lost inspirations and gained substantialities - it might just not have any idea where the you of 10 years from now will be.

When I was growing up - a kid, a teenager - I always thought I'd marry in my early 20's.

Boy was I wrong.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
- John 3:8

The problem with working nights is that you have to try to sleep during the day, which no one should have to do. I have enough trouble trying to sleep at night, for crying out loud. Usually I hit the wall around 4am or so, but then you just push through and by the time 8am comes you're driving home wide a-freakin-wake. When you do fall asleep you wake up 4 hours later with a headache like you only slept for 5 minutes. Then its time to blog, shower, and go start the magic all over again.

And for the life of me I can not find a better project to save me from this...project.

Messes with your weekends too, when you have them, when you try to be up while normal people are up. Friday night was out at Naked Lunch with D and some work kids, Saturday was struggling to say awake until I picked up Darin and Sonny at the airport on the way back from their missions trip to Gulfport, MS. Sunday was a 9am exec committee meeting for the youth group leaders, church, final prep meeting for the youth group missions trip, and then over to Cregan and Mindi's with Jenny for a bit. And that evening a bunch of peeps from the Hoboken church came over for the annual St. Anne's festival celebrated on our roof. Basically we get food from the festival and then bring it upstairs to chill away from the sweaty festival people. And usually there's throwing of Zeppoles off of our roof but this year the line was too long for them. The lengths we go to for tradition.

Monday I made a run out to Ikea. Best time to go, found the sheet set I needed in 5 minutes, grabbed some impulse-buy candles, and found a nice replacement for my dresser, which is coming apart right on schedule - 6 years after I got it at Ikea. Checked out bed-frames briefly too - mine seems to be holding up, but I did get it when I got the dresser, so its suspect.

Grabbed some groceries and a sushi lunch at Whole Foods - first time eating sushi by myself, which was an adventure. Socks at TJ Maxx and bug spray for the missions trip at Target and then it was time to lug everything upstairs and get ready for work. Which is what I have to do again now.

Time for Thursday linkery...like good ol times.

How to beat pac-man for good.

Guess where I'll be August 4th.

The best show on TV is on the web this summer.

How do you steal a bike in NYC? Any way you want.

Apparently we're killing the bees that make our food supply possible. Great. In other news, I'm investigating a career in bee-keeping.

A riveting slide-show from the New Yorker - letters read by those serving in Iraq. Part of a preview for a new book compiled of the same, which I will be picking up.

I got another hit on a Where's George bill. So far its been a very underwhelming site for me.

Peanut Gallery - MST3K your own movies - brilliant!

Things I figured out. Ok, not me, but other people.

What makes women happy. I like how it doesn't even really answer the question definitively.

I want a Firefox extension to...

New York Brain Terrain

Wine Log

There, that gets me back to only one line of tabs open in Firefox. That's what we call progress these days.

4:04 AM. I don't even know what day it is anymore.

The US Postal Service's largest processing facility is located in Secaucus, NJ. On top of a majority of the domestic mail sent throughout the northeast, it manages all international and military mail, coming in or out of the the entire eastern half of the states. That means trucks. Trucks from other postal facilites. Trucks from the piers. Trucks from the airports. Trucks from the trains. Trucks. Thousands of them. Actually only the trailer parts. Technically the truck is the tractor part that pulls the trailer, and the trailer is the part that the trucks drop off here, full of mail waiting to be processed and reinserted into another empty trailer. So, thousands of trailers. Less trucks.

Anyway. We're here putting in a new system to track them, or something. All I know is that these are the worst hours I've ever worked in my life, ever. This week has been 7pm-7am shifts, which always turn out to be a good deal longer than 12 hours. And that's about all I have to say about it.

So...since sis was in town for the holiday...I really don't remember much besides work. Sundays after church we've been having our prep meetings for the missions trip, and this past Friday was the annual Dorney Park trip, but other than that its all been a big blur of work.

Speaking of the missions trip, you can help support me by praying for me - I'll be helping lead the youth group as we help rebuild in New Orlean's 9th Ward area from August 12th through the 19th. You can also help support me with your wallet, here (you'll find my name in the drop-down under the "Katrina Youth Team" section).

I'm thankful even in this valley of overworkingness for good friends and kind words and providential encounters of late that have all combined to reignite my desire to investigate pursuing an MDiv in the near future. Even if I do make my promotion - perhaps especially if I make it - next month, I think I will be filling out paperwork and visiting a few schools. I'm not saying that my mind has been made up, and there certainly needs to be a good deal more prayer - and likely a concerted effort at a return to daily writing for a number of months - but I suppose I am starting to lean more heavily in that direction.

Three more nights of getting home and having breakfast before passing out for a few hours of tortured daytime sleep and then I'm off for the weekend. Maybe blog then. Doubt it. And I want an MBA again because why?

They say that when a man faces his destiny, his destiny ends, and he becomes the man that he really is. - Mos Def, as Eddie Bunker in 16 Blocks

Time for another clearing of the firefox tabs and general excusing of myself for not posting much at all lately. In that order, this evening.

You can pay money to see this guy shock himself with a dog collar. The internet yet again bestows another manifold blessing upon us. You can also pay to have him not shock himself, in which case you are the one that should be shocked.

The Downtown Boathouse puts on free kayaking on the Hudson for people on the weekends and holidays during the summers, and its all volunteer run/funded. I'm out of town in DC this weekend, but I hope to volunteer with them some this summer, at some point. Meanwhile, if you're a cute, single gal in DC, this weekend is your big chance to meet the Daves (however I'll be the only single one, this time).

In other free-in-NYC-during-the-summer-news, Philharmonic in the Park. I'll be there on the 12th. Ladies of NYC, this is your big chance.

Music.metafilter.com

Your morbid link of the day is last words from pilots of downed planes.

The Modern List could have been a cool site if it wasn't so freaking small.

Scary because its true.

The Great New Wonderful might be as close as I'll ever come to watching a movie that has anything whatsoever to do with 9/11.

This is the only online apparition of that French cafe I had brunch at a couple of weeks ago that I've been able to find. Apparently its remained completely unlisted elsewhere - impressive.

Best burgers in the city (shake shack dropped to like 6th!).

Funny how this one didn't make very big waves in the media, huh?

OK, that was as far as I was able to get before I had to leave for our farewell dinner for the seniors in the youth group. Always a bittersweet event - and it always makes me feel older, like a parent sending their child off to college, in a sense. Except I get to do it every year. It was at Jerry's in Soho, which despite the external facade has great ambiance inside, complemented by equally above-par service. Food didn't really do it for me, though.

Worked in the West Village office today - glad to be back there in a sense, I really love that area. I just wish it was filled with more single women and fewer gay men, but we can't have our cake and eat it too, I guess.

Had a good holiday weekend. Friday was quiet. Saturday was helping a friend with way too many material belongings move to Hoboken, and then golfing with Ko that afternoon. I hit par on the second hole - that's all I have to say about that. Sunday I caught church and then brunch with 'tina - a friend from Grover days. Then off to JFK via train to pick up Margy. I left my super-umbrella on the subway, garh, but at least Margy showed up dressed in all black with black luggage - I was so impressed, what with her looking for all the world like a local. We caught the evening service, I was able to introduce her to Pastor K on his way out, and then we caught a ride back to the boken. Monday we biked to the ferry, up the west side highway, did the free kayaks, biked the loop in the park, back to the WSH, back over by ferry, back home. It was a blast, but it was hot out so we were wiped out after. Sushi dinner late with the roommate - I have officially inducted sushi - well, the tamer forms of it - into the hall of foods Dave will eat. That leaves pretty much everything but things that are alive, things that are a bug, things that are eyeballs, and Ethiopian food still outside the hall.

For the fourth we were quite patriotic, we got up early and took sis to the Statue of Liberty, which is like my 9 billionth time there, but its not something that's easy to do without a local - takes about 9 billion times as long - so I don't mind tour guiding. Then a BBQ with some of the old Hoboken church kids, and then sis dragged me down to the waterfront to watch the fireworks. I am getting old - for the first time I actually wanted to watch them from my deck.

Put her on a plane Weds. morning and it was back to work for me.

So, there you have it - a real blog post. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

One year ago, today, I wrote this. Funny how fast 2 years go.

Scary, even.

I don't really have stats, or even estimated stats, like I did last year. Blogger says I've written 488 posts, but, as I speculated last year, I'm almost certain that number is drastically low. I'd guess I'm more in the range of 600 in 2 full years of fairly regular blogging. Who knows how many words that means at this point. A lot.

I've started using Google Analytics, which is good, has more features than I know what to do with, but to give you any stats would be pretty meaningless as I only started using it about 4 months ago. Which was the same time I started on the Royal Caribbean project in Miami. Which was the same time I started working round the clock and completely missed any regular blogging. So traffic tanked.

I guess my blogging has been a fairly good testament to my life in general lately. Crazy, irregular, all over the place. The Royal Caribbean project management wanted me to go to Salt Lake City to do some side work on the project this week, but I turned them down on the advice of my Career Counselor and HR Rep in the hopes of finding a more long term role. The idea is that if I get promoted at the end of summer to manager, I should already be in a role that I can be promoted in, on that project, rather than having to sell myself as a fresh manager to a new project, which could be a problem. If.

So - my summer will probably be less enjoyable than last, because I'll be on another new project working my tail off to make good first impressions, just like I was for the last 4 months. And then, if I get promoted (if), my workload/responsibilities go up up up and blogging goes...can you guess? The idea, if I get promoted, is to give it a year of dedicated effort, to at least get it on my resume, and then see where I'm at and consider further schooling. And, if no promo, the idea is to start looking at more schooling immediately. And so, quietly on a Thursday night in late June, the gauntlet has been thrown down.

The problem is I still haven't decided on which of my three schooling options to go with, however at this point I'm leaning towards the least temporally practical option.

I think I need a girlfriend to make me go to business school.

Happy birthday blog.

Ugh. I'm back to being unstaffed and I still can't find it in me to throw up a blog post. What gives?

I think I've been partying a little too hard to make up for all that time of working too hard. Friday was catching up on paperwork and then that evening out in the city for Dave's girlfriend Jen's birthday party. Good times at the Sugar Bar. Saturday was our first meeting with the leader/youth team that is going to New Orleans for our missions trip in August. It lasted the better part of the afternoon then I headed home to start cleaning up for the evening. That night we had people over. Not a party - just opened our doors.

Next thing you know its in the wee hours and I'm swing dancing and getting my hip hop on and before you know it I'm getting digits...crazy.

Sunday was church and then Dave and I tried to get out to the last round of the US Open at Winged Foot. Because of our late start, we got stuck in crazy traffic, and decided not to even bother just trying to see the last hour and sit in terrible traffic coming back, so we turned around and got back to Dave's place in 20 minutes (it had taken us 2 hours going there).

On the way to the evening service Dave's dad showed me his sermon notes. I've always wondered what they looked like. He has his own strange version of short-hand that makes them all but illegible. I found that rather interesting.

After church Dave and I saw Cars - everything Pixar touches turns to pure gold, in my humble opinion. Monday and Tuesday were working from home - trying to find the right next project/position to get on, and Tuesday eve I headed over to Dave's to help him move some furniture as his mom is having their place repainted. Then we took off for more poker at 45 Wall. I dropped $50 to play 3 hands, basically. Total joke. I lose every freakin time I play there. So I didn't get home until early in the morning today.

So there you are. Tomorrow, there will be a blog post. Tomorrow is an important day.

(Addendum: Oh, and Monday I had a rather wonderful lunch at Le Granne - 9th and 21st, so new you won't find it on menupages or citysearch - followed by cupcakes at Billy's and a stroll through Chelsea Market and the Piers to boot. Cupcakes not so much my thing, but the company was.)

I have become a slave of sorts to my Firefox tab option. Right now I have about 40 open and that's roughly average. There's a few I always keep open - del.icio.us' popular list, Lifehacker.com, Metafilter.com, and my Gmail. Pretty much need those. But the rest are all things that I'm either a) meaning to bookmark to del.icio.us, or blog, or both. So here's to closing down some tabs...

Nathan is one of the guys in the youth group I work with at church - this is his robotics blog. This is a totally rad ad that Nathan sent me the link to.

The Vanguard.org is an online community of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market and limited government as the best means to bring hope and ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest among us. I'm not the ultimate conservative by any means, but I definitely like the last part of their purpose. Found via Amy Bedsole, who I met via blogging. And, ironically, Wayne Johnson, from my parent's church back in Sacto, is a member of the board.

Tonight's main feature - good stuff to read:

Overheard in the Office is based off of the original Overheard in New York. Both are pretty good reads, albeit the potential language/content warning.

Found magazine is another interesting one. I may have linked to this long ago, but I just found it again recently - pun intended.

Timothy McSweeny woke to a sandy tongue and a reddened elbow.

Talk about incredible design...

10 steps to guarantee failure.

Another sign of the Ipod apocalypse. Personally, Idont follow the trend.

I've avoided the Sudoku fever but in case you haven't - here's your solution.

Wikimapia makes a wiki out of Google Maps. Check out the info for Central Park - courtesy of yours truly, baby.

I missed out on the Big Apple BBQ this weekend but I'll be planning on it next year.

I want a Firefox extension to...

Fo.rtuito.us looks like some kind of social networking similar in format to del.icio.us - that's about all I can figure out about it at this point.

I won't read this article because its blasphemy.

Here's this week's Christian Carnival.

Well - that cut my tabs almost in half. Still have a lot of reading cut out for me tomorrow.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it..."
- Mal. 3:10

The above is the only place in the Bible where God actually tells us to test Him - the only place where it is not considered a sin to do so.

Its the end of the year for youth group, which means we're on our 7th checkpoint - Others First. A couple weeks back the passage for the lesson was from Deuteronomy 15, another passage promising abundant blessing upon God's people if only they would trust in the Lord's promise that the land He was giving them had more than enough for everyone, and share accordingly with the needy among them:

Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.

I'm constantly being challenged to give more. There's a billion opportunities, from the homeless ministries in the city, to missions trips to New Orleans (one of which I'll be going on this summer with the youth group), to the people in Darfur...there's just need, as far as the eye can see.

I don't give nearly as much as I'd like right now, and I keep telling myself its because of my debt and that the prudent thing to do is to eliminate it first and then give from a state of liquidity - in the end I'll be giving more that I would pay in interest otherwise. The real challenge will be to see if I truly can find it in me to give radically when I do break free of my debt.

But I do give some, and that's the key - at least for now. Even if it's only a little - it is the first step in the right direction. I always think of my childhood friend, Aaron. His mom was raising he and his brothers with no father around to help pay the bills, and they struggled more than most to make ends meet. But that lady paid her tithe, on her precious little income. I never knew it at the time, of course, but years later my mom mentioned it by way of pointing out that 10% of a precious little is a whole lot more than 10% of a much larger sum. Its a matter of perspective, not volume, at the end of the day.

As with the rich young ruler, giving is an issue of the heart, not the wallet.

Wow...time for a nice long catch-up post. I've been juggling so much lately I feel like I'm not sure if I just lost my horse or found a rope.

Rewind...last post was June 2nd. Early in the morning after my big night out in Miami - actually the first night I had taken there to do something other than work in like 2 or 3 months. Friday was a few hours of work before hopping on a flight back to NYC. Just in time for a big rainy weekend. Redeemer had a prayer conference and it was really great - led by the pastor of the PCA church plant in Vancouver, BC - same church we went to last year at the start of our ski trip in Whistler. He was passionate and practical - good combination.

Saturday afternoon I had a couple hours to relax then headed to Arlene's Grocery in the East Village to see Like Summer, the band led by Steve Gretz, husband to my college friend Allyson, who I don't think I'd scene since before their wedding. The band's set got pushed back and I had a lesson to write for youth group still, so I left early and got to work on that. Sunday was church, youth group, and then I took off to finish packing and catch an evening flight to Chicago.

Spent the week in St. Charles, Ill. - about an hour outside of downtown Chi-town, training at the company's big training facility there - came to find out its a shared facility, but everyone's there for pretty much the same deal - some kind of training related to their consulting work. Its surreal - like going back to college. People going out every night, seeing the same faces in the caf, running for a class you're late for...people not showing up for class on Friday morning. Played an evening of soccer with a bunch of the guys in my program from Europe - they were good, real good, but I represented the states well. Worked out a couple times, and spent a few hours working on my short game as well, which was awesome.

Lest you get me wrong - it was a lot of work, too, so by the time Friday rolled around I was dragging. They have us share limos for rides back to the airport / city, so I hopped in one that was to drop me at Dawn's place, and promptly went straight to sleep. Woke up an hour or so later and we were still in traffic. Dropped my stuff off at Dawn's and headed for the Blues Festival at the park downtown. Great music, plus, the museum was free, so I got to spend an hour or two drawing Hopper's Nighthawks. I can't think of a better way to end a tough week than relaxing in front of that painting.

Met up with Dawn and we headed out to Nick's Uptown to hear some more blues, and for Dawn to cavort with her underground Swing scene counterparts. These kids were good. So good it inspired me to get back into dancing - and there's a class I'm signing up for through church this summer. Thanks for your previous comment, btw, Dawn.

Crashed for a couple hours then caught a morning flight out of rainy Chicago back to windy New York. Saturday I was useless for the most part, Sunday was the same - church, youth group. But no laundry / packing that afternoon, b/c this week I am WORKING FROM HOME. Woot.

So, that's what I'm doing today. Got a bit more, then a 6pm call, then tomorrow. Then I'm taking Weds-Fri off, save for one conference call I need to be on. I'm going to use the time to research some schools. Still not sure where I want to go, but its time to stop putting things off. Pretty soon I'll be dead without having made up my mind, and that would be not very good.

So, that said, I'm going to try and do a regular week of posting, for old time's sake. Check back tomorrow!

(there might even be new pictures posted...oooooh...)

I feel so odd when I go out.

Maybe its where I'm going out - New York City and Miami for the most part.

Its just not my scene. Tonight I saw literally hundreds of beautiful women, and thousands of dollars of alcohol being consumed. People dressed, looking, acting, dancing, and in every other respect basically being about as cool as humanity can define the term.

I sat there, dressed well, looking and acting the part, trying to be as cool as possible...for what?

Its clear what most of the guys are there for. But I'm not looking to take a girl home at the end of the night. That quality sadly does nothing to separate me from the rest of the crowd. Its clear what most of the girls are there for too, and I'm not one who's there to go out of my way to provide them with the attention they're looking for. Which does serve to separate me to some degree, but not really a positive one...more of an aloof one.

What I wonder is why don't Christians go out? Am I limited to meeting them at church? Isn't that a place I should go to worship, not meet women? Why aren't there places where I can go out, have a good time, dance, have a drink, laugh with my friends...but not have an alternate agenda AND not be concerned that the other 99% of the people there have one either?

Why is it so freaking hard to find someone who sees the world the way you do? Am I really that far outside the norms?

Wow. Well, I didn't miss my blog's birthday. Not gonna do that. But June marks 2 years. We'll have to think up something special, especially since we've been so rare at blogging lately. A big surprise. Stick around, as Ahnold would say. 10 points if you can name the movie.

Happy June, btw. Its already summer, wow.

So I haven't been able to blog but I have a number of posts I've been able to either a) write while off-line, and save for blogging later, or b) write while on-line but not have time for publishing. What follows is one of the b's. An IM convo I had at work today with a co-worker of mine. I realize that its not 100% my writing, but it is an exciting opening to a conversation about faith.

Context: I had just figured out how to solve a systemic analysis issue at work, and my co-worker thanked me...

Co-worker: Thanks again. How'd you figure it out?

David: the ways of the oracle are mysterious to the minds of mere mortals (yes, I call myself the oracle, from time to time, at work)

Co-worker: Are oracles immortal?

David: yes

well. my soul is. everyone's soul is.

Co-worker: wow immortality + req pro expertise. impressive. (req pro is the database system we use at our current client)

David: i know, sounds like a d&d character

Co-worker: ?

David: dungeons and dragons

"my oracle has immortality and a +5 req pro expertise"

Co-worker: ... never played

cards right?

David: yeah

i never played either

parents forbid it

Co-worker: why?

David: conservative christian upbringing

all that goth stuff was the devil

Co-worker: is d&d considered goth?

i guess so huh.

David: yeah.

Co-worker: would you play now?

There is chocolate here btw.

David: i'm allergic to chocolate

Co-worker: really??

David: i don't have time for card games save poker now

Co-worker: I kind of wish I were.

David: yes really

not bad, but it messes w/ my sinuses

David: so what do you think happens when you die?

Co-worker: I haven't decided yet.

I think there is heaven. But I also think there is a big void after death too. So I don't know.

David: its kind of an important thing to decide on - hah

so do you believe there is hell?

Co-worker: it's not really my choice.

I will have to wait and see!

David: what do you mean its not really your choice?

Co-worker: yes, if there is a heaven, there is a hell.

You said it's important to decide on

David: good - i'm glad you get that there must be a hell if there is a heaven - i can't stand it when people think there's just heaven

Co-worker: well there has to be. no way around it.

David: exactly

but i still don't get why you don't think what you believe is your choice

Co-worker: you mean I can choose to believe one thing or another?

David: doesn't everyone?

Co-worker: But it would be a cognitive choice. Like, "I choose to believe there is heaven and hell"

instead of "I believe in it"

David: doesn't saying you believe in it necessarily assume that you made the choice to believe at some point?

Co-worker: yes but at this point, i would be forcing the choice.

David: how so?

Co-worker: because i can't decide right now.

David: why not?

why wait? what if a tidal wave wipes us all out this afternoon?

Co-worker: then you would go to heaven.

or, one would hope. but i do not know what would happen to me.

David: what do you think would happen to you?

best guesstimate

(btw, lest you think i'm crazy about the tsunami - we only narrowly avoided it this month: http://savelivesinmay.com/)

Co-worker: brb - conf call

what do I think would happen?

i think I've lived a good life and done good. but following the scripture, I'd probably go to hell.

But i don't believe that entirely either.

I could be treading on very contentious ground, but I'll share with you -

It is hard for me to accept that because I don't live my life exactly as dictated, I would burn for eternity, even though I have not harmed others, have treated otheres as I would have them treat me, and have lived virtuously.

I guess the problem is, virtuous is subjective, and without an objective definition, anyone could say they are a good person and thus should not go to hell.

Therefore, it is hard for me to decide if there is a heaven/hell or nothing at all, because while I believe in a lot, it is hard to accept that it's a binary decision and as a result I would get a 0.

David: that is an extremely well thought-out point of view

but, sadly...it leaves you hanging.

i think a lot of people reach that conclusion, or something like it, and assume it is a dead end. and they never get around to addressing the paradox before they die.

Co-worker: I think my internal conflict stems from the fact that I want to believe.

But you are exactly right, that I have reached a dead end that it's a paradox that I won't be able to address.

David: well that's a quitters point of view

"paradox that I won't be able to address"

Co-worker: You mean, I should keep digging until I find a resolution?

David: yes

Co-worker: That is not a bad point.

What if I dig my whole life and do not find one?

David: the important thing is that you dig. if you give up on digging, you'll never find the answer

and then you'll be like all those other people, kind of blindly throwing your life into eternity hoping you land on your feet

Co-worker: Yes I think it's important to keep digging..

David: so how are you digging?

Co-worker: slowly learning more about it I suppose.

David: ok...well, watch out for tsunamis in the mean time

Co-worker: I will but if it's my time...

David: Co-worker B and i were talking about this famous extreme skiier we knew who fell off a cliff trying to save a friend back in april

he was talking about what a horrible way to go it was - not even having time to make peace with yourself or God

but that made me think about how it could happen to any of us - car accident, heart attack, whatever

Co-worker: yes it could

David: anyway that's why i think its important to sort things out rather than just taking it as it comes

eternity is a whole freakin lot longer than this brief stay on earth

Co-worker: I agree. its hard to force a choice that is not natural.

we'll talk more about it later

gotta run

thanks for the convo.

David: have a nice night

Co-worker: it's not a topic i get to atlk about often

Hi there. Haven't seen you in a while.

I've taken up a new initiative at work and I think the same thing would work well on my blog - I'm working on complaining less. It used to be something I strived for in most walks of life, but some manner of discontent has managed to sneak its way into my life as I've been almost solely focused on work. Work. Work.

I don't have much to say about it besides that. There's a lot of it, and right now the situation still...isn't very pretty. And I'm still working hard and doing a good job.

That's about all the positive honesty you're going to get out of me here on this blog, tonight. Smile.

I've found myself drawn back to NYC on the weekends despite the fact that I could very well stay in Miami should I so have the desire. Which I haven't. And my weekends back in the city have been great - old friends, new fun places in the city, just...home. Its my home now. I don't see myself there forever, I never have, but at the same time, I don't see myself leaving anytime in the near future. There's a lot to be done there.

Youth group is great, as is church. As is Hoboken. I suppose if the roommate and his ex-broadway star GF ever decide to get finger-bands, I may look for something in the city. I don't know that I'd like living there as much as I think I'd like saying I did it. Rite of passage, that whole bit. Not a bridge and tunneller for one brief period. It would work splendidly if my little sis would finish nursing school and move here to work, and we could get a place together. I could finally look into buying, and she could live there, since I travel all the time anyway. Perhaps, perhaps.

I keep thinking the real estate bubble there will someday soon make that delightful "pop" sound. Speaking of real estate, dad's doing great now that he's back in the mortgage loan biz, and he and his boss are pitching me on the idea of getting in. Sounds like I could go doorbusters right off the bat, but it might involve a move. Which...just isn't in the picture right now.

School. More school is in the picture. That's what this summer will be about. Work, sure...but more discovery of schools and hopefully some guidance as to what schooling I want to pursue. I think I've blogged on it before, but at this point its narrowed to MBA, MDIV, or a Journalism Masters of some nature or another. I'm thinking creative non-fiction. Which is ironically similar to an MDIV. But I do *not* want to preach. Not called to that.

I love bleu cheese. I love all cheese. But bleu in particular. Something about the swap of the e and the u. Sexy.

That is all. Hopefully FF won't crash and you'll have my surfing pattern for the week laid out before you, sometime before the weekend. If not, I'll see you when I see you again.

Apologies. Its my own mis-prioritization of life that's to blame, nothing else.

I think I might actually try to get online tonight and throw this post up, if I'm
still as awake when I get home as I am now. Now is a bumpy flight somewhere over the Atlantic. At least I'm in an exit row.

Lots of linkery this week. I browsed a lot. I needed it. Not a lot as in nearly as much as I did in the past, but a lot as in a good deal more than the pretty much zero I've been doing lately. That said...

I think I'm going to give shaving sans shaving cream a shot. I've had to shave without cream simply for lack of not having it before, and it was never that bad.

Echurch, in a similar vein to the Ebible link earlier in the week, seems to be a collection of Web 2.0 ideas/projects that are related to church / Christianity.

Until I read this, I had no idea that anyone actually had been duped by the Nigerian scam artists. Sad.

Satellite tracking is the coolness.

Andrew Sullivan has an interesting piece in Time this week. Don't agree with it en total, but it has some good points.

The Museum of Modern Betas (blog).

Language warning, but every senior exec of every major corporation everywhere should read this. I connected with every single point she made.

Speaking of work, here's the 5 minute flow chart.

Apparently the Avian Flu isn't all its cracked up to be.

How to rip DVDs to small AVI or MPG formatted files.

The inside tip on how to sell on eBay.

Bridge vs. Boat.

More than once I've had the conversation of why I haven't yet bought the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. To you doubters, I say: Now what's up? Yeeeeah, that's right.

Wikocracy. Sweet idea, will be neat to see where it goes.

Well, I obviously didn't get this post up last Thursday night. I got in pretty late. And, speaking as someone who flies twice a week, I had THE scariest landing I've EVER had. Within a couple hundred feet of the ground the turbulence was still pushing the wings up and down, and the pilot actually had to speed up to land us on a wet runway. Freaky.

Anyway, now I'm headed to bed b/c its another way-before-the-crack-of-dawn start to the work week tomorrow. To placate my poor readership...I give you...

Some

You

Tube

Goodness

One Free Invite to EBible

I've got an invite to EBible for whoever wants it. Leave a comment with your email address spelled out, and you can have it. But there's a catch. Since I had to troll for a while to find my invite, I'm going to try to start a chain here. If you accept my invite, you have to promise to check back here and give *your* invite (the one you'll have to give once you accept mine) to the next person in line on my comments, and then they'll give theirs to the next person, and so on, and so forth. Please leave your promissory note with your email address.

So let's work together here, ok people? And if you renig on your promise...well, that's almost like blasphemy, since its a Bible site we're sharing. So just try and sleep with *that* guilt.

Comment away...

(I used the title for a change so that it will be picked up by people surfing blogs for invites - as you'll see, their main page links to a Google blog search for such invites)

(btw...looks like a pretty cool site so far)

Ebible is a new site, just released in beta, and currently on an invite-only status. I really want to get my hands on an invite, so this shameless, scandalous mid-day post is simply to get my blog out there as linking to Ebible, so that hopefully someone with an invite will stumble upon me and bless me with one.

I have a blog?

I...have a blog. (best Willy Shatner impression)

*passionately kisses the local planet girl du jour*

Eh. No complaining about ridiculously long work hours and all the travel and being under-appreciated and basically mis-led into a role that isn't what they said it would be. You know all that already. The same old "poor me, I'm getting screwed" mantra that I keep on harping every week. Ugh.

Meanwhile life is good. I'm busy, sure, but I have a job that pays OK and I get the benefits of all the travel - although I'll be honest, frequent flier miles and hotel points aren't what they once were. But I'm eating well and trying to get back to exercising morning and night, roughly 3 days a week.

This past weekend we hit Peter Luger's on Saturday for a birthday lunch for Keller - good times, both the Negrin brothers, BJ, myself, some old roommates of Dave's, and a couple others. Yummy meat. And the burgers there (ground steak) are only 8 bucks, so half of us ordered them to go, for dinner later. Righteous.

Yes, I just used a late-eighties term for "awesome."

After that we retired to younger Negrin's place on Wall Street and played poker on their roof-top deck. I got crap cards all night and, seeing as I usually play on the tight side, was pretty much doomed because no bluff of mine would work. So I lost both games, although the first one I didn't come in last. Ugh.

Sunday was church, youth group, and then dinner in the Cooke's back yard with a single mom and her two sons that have been coming to youth group. These two dudes have presented a unique challenge to me as I try to present in our lessons the gospel idea of God as Father - when they never had one.

Sometimes I feel so inadequate for the tasks I am called to. Thankfully its the inadequate that God is looking to use. I hope I can be useful.

Down to once-a-week posting. This is pitiful. All I ever do anymore is travel and work. And sometimes take a break to whine about it on my blog.

Thursdays - at least as they should be, in a more perfect world - involve getting up earlier than normal to pack up the hotel room that I've scattered myself across during the week. Then its off to the office, bags in car, work all day, leave for the airport after work. Both AA and Continental only have a pre-5pm flight and a post-8pm flight back to Newark from here, which is just plain crap. AA's is 8:47, which doesn't get you in until midnight. And that's when flights are actually on time (which they usually aren't, in my experience). Anyway, that's how Thursdays should be, but they'll probably try to get me to go back to spending Fridays here for the next few weeks, which is pretty much a completely self-defeating idea. The pipe-dream is that I'll get more work done, but since I travel during the day (no way I'm waiting for that freakin after-8 flight on a Friday night), I actually have less dedicated hours in front of a computer screen / on the phone. If I fly Thursday nights, basically on my own personal time (although I'm usually working on the flight) - I can put in a full day on Friday. Which means more OT and don't even get me started on that subject.

So anyway - that gives you a general idea of why I'll probably never be able to post on a Friday again, at least any time soon. So, with that in mind, we bring you Thursday links. A full day early. I think, perhaps, for the first time, ever.

Third Wave is an interesting read - no idea if its true or not. Related: The Artificial Prison of the Human Mind.

World's largest functional Tetris game. Sweet.

Hacking a more tasteful myspace. (hope to do this myself sometime, but let's be realistic, I'll never have the time)

Google is good, all the time. This week she gives us Gmaps on our mobile phones - free. Has satellite view and directions and quick search for local businesses (ie. pizza, chinese, etc). Tres awesome.

And here's some Google Calendar tips, to boot.

Day of the Beast is coming. Oooooh...666...scaaaarrrryyyy...

Oh, and speaking of evil things - looks like my company is helping the world take a massive step forward towards the computers taking over and making human batteries out of us all...(I like to think that I'm probably one of the only people in the world that put two and two together on that copper-top line that Switch said to Neo in The Matrix. While still in the theater.)

Sorry for like a whole week off from the blog. Not that I don't have a lot to say, its just...literally no time. Have to leave for the airport in about 6 hours. Oy.

Sports update:

My Sharks: up 3-1 in the series over Nashville and currently leading tonight's game 2-0. They are looking hot, the cup could be within reach this year.

My Kings: down 2-1 in the servies againts San Antonio, but they won their first home game on a buzzer-beater and tonight's game should be even more exciting. Hoping they tie it, but I'll be sleeping.

My A's: Now sitting at 12-12 to lead the AL West (tied with Texas at 12-12, if they don't lose tonight, ahead of Anaheim at 12-13). Solid start to the season, considering...

49ers did alright in the draft (as did the Stillers). Hoping to watch another A's game in May. That is all.

The older you get, the more you get to realize that you are becoming your own person. That you're really an adult now.

You go home, and the tendency for the parents is to treat you like a child - for the siblings to treat you like the same old brother. But that's not what you are to the rest of the world anymore.

Out there, you're now "sir" to the kids at the fast food joint or the grocery store or the gas station. There was that period where there was an awkward pause when they went to adddress you - they realized you probably weren't that much older than them and then they weren't sure quite what to call you. But that's long gone. These days, you are a "sir." The world expects you to pay your bills on time and show up at work regularly and clothe and feed yourself and drive somewhere close to the speed limit and a number of other things that all the rest of the adults are doing. And you manage to accomplish most of these things with some regularity.

But not at home. At home your expectations haven't changed much at all. You can still act like a kid. Sometimes you even do...but its not who you really are anymore. After a little while you need to go back to facing the world on your own.

Its like...there's at least one part of home that you can never go back to.

Well, we haven't had some links in a while, so why not a vacation-special. Off and running...

Listing Square is NYC specific (at least from my first perusal) but it looks like a step-up on CraigsList for finding a good place sans-realtor fee.

Top 100 Vin Diesel Facts. (serious language warning, also serious laugh your butt off warning) (Chuck Norris is so 2005)

If you didn't catch it already, Google Calendar is live. Here's how to import your Outlook calendar.

Taco Bell Champion! I would vote for this guy for city council, hands down. Even if he hasn't seen the light of Crunchwrap.

You probably saw the email at some point with the pictures of that crazy street art stuff - here's his website.

This Ask Mefi question was a great one and got a TON of response, including my own. And in case you miss the great link in there, here's how NYC sees the rest of America.

Haven't linked to a decent photoblogg in a while.

This picture was made with Photoshop. In 2000 hours. Wow.

More Google goodness - now those "related links" you see above your Gmail can be integrated to your own site.

Not sure if I ever linked to this fabulous Times article but here it is.

And we've finally cleaned up my 15 or so open tabs. That's what I do - I leave the good stuff open in tabs to some day be accumulated into a linky blog post. Sometimes FF freaks and I lose my session before I can post everything - probably happened twice to me since the last link post, oh well.

Update...I'm in the safe, warm, enclave that is Panera. This one's near the 'rent's place in Cali. Mom found my blog (hi mom, like you'll ever actually read this thing) recently, by the way. Thanks, Margy. She said you showed her your "nursing journal blog." Cha, right. Its only by the grace of God and the fact that I am the ultimate awesome older brother that I am not posting a huge HEY MOM THIS IS MARGY'S REAL BLOG LINK. She knows its out there, so your days are numbered, especially with all the linking you do to kids from the church back home here. Bad idea. I hear there's a dad in the church who religiously follows all the kids blogs and makes reports to all the parents. You're toast.

Anyway, youngest brother and I went skiing yesterday, my first and last day of the season in this hemisphere (still hoping to make Chile happen in August). We took today off because a potential rain storm was moving in. Too bad I didn't get here a couple days sooner.

Tomorrow, who knows what. Sunday is church day with the family. I have to endure an evening service. Not entirely restful for me - the pastoral prayers usually stress me out. Monday is flying back through the surprisingly pleasant Houston airport. I get in late Monday night and Tuesday is back to the craziness.

In my hours here at Panera, its slowly become a Friday night, which is surprisingly similar to Hoboken - couples start coming out of the woodwork. Only difference is the mean age here is probably 5-10 years younger.

Last Friday night I was finally back in the city for a decent night out on the town. Being as it was Good Friday, and I had worked a good long day, I wanted to have a good night. Out.

Caught the 8pm service at church, where Dave and I met up to head down to the West Village. His brother and his brother's wife and some friends of theirs were down there having dinner (they had gone to an earlier service). We met up, walked around for a while, and discussed the problems that Christian singles have with actually meeting other singles. Let's put it this way: when there's a whole sector of a whole industry actually directed at helping Christian singles meet each other, we have a problem.

Defining it is surprisingly simple.

Christian guys, in general, enjoy going out. Having a beer, playing some pool, maybe even meeting some girls. Problem is, most of the girls the Christian guy meets, while out, aren't Christian. Most aren't even interested in the topic. But still, sooner or later he meets a nice girl, who looks pretty good on paper, its just that her life resume is missing that one critical reference - she doesn't have the same Best Friend that the guy does. (Let's put the whole 'missionary dating' conversation on hold for the moment). But he meets a girl, maybe he has - or has not - ascertained where she ranks on the spirituality spectrum, and maybe he meets up with her for coffee or something at some point to gauge it a little better. Its usually the same story, though. He's an attractive guy, she's an attractive girl - and at some point not too far down the road, the guy finds himself in the awkward position of having to have a conversation to define why pursuing things further just won't work for them.

Why can't he just meet a nice Christian girl?

Well, because, I think, in large part - Christian girls don't like going out...at least not in the sense that Christian guys do. And with good reason - most bars are rife with guys with less-than-admirable aspirations, waiting to meet them. Just the first few minutes in the bar we were at on Friday would tell you that story, ten times over. I see guys and girls relating in ways I'd never really think to, in these bars. I mean - its a little shocking to me, but how much more so to a decent Christian girl - the prospect of getting treated the way a lot of these girls do. Suffice to say - based 100% on their looks - its pretty clear what that does to a girl's motivations (and psyche, simultaneously). In the end, at best, the Christian girls resort to going out in large groups of friends - which, frankly, any guy, Christian or not, finds it a little intimidating to break into. At worst, they're sitting at home reading Jane Austen and trusting that their beau will someday plop down in a pew next to them, ready to propose.

"But what happened to all those Christian guys who like going out?" you ask. Well, they still like going out... but after a while, they get used to not seeing so many prospects in the pond, and fishing it becomes a less and less enticing project. Not to mention those conversations with the girls where things just aren't going to be... certainly no more pleasant than pulling a catch off the hook and throwing it back in the water.

Its a downward spiral. Christian singles stop going out for very nearly the same reasons we see so much avoidance of a healthy understanding of sex itself. There are so many bad things associated with sex, we begin to taboo it, avoid even defining and teaching and celebrating the good things about it. There's so much in the bar / dating scene that is just not pleasant, or downright wrong, that we begin to avoid it en total. And that's not right. The Christian guy or girl begins to let their social skills with the opposite sex languish, and next thing you know, when they do (somehow, don't ask me how) run into a decent prospect, they're too rusty to convert.

So, problem defined. Now you expect me to offer the solution. Not so fast.

Dave and I talked on this at length, and actually put together some ideas on working to fight against the norm - practical ideas. More on that to come.

A whole week? ...Really?

Wow. I think - well, I'm pretty certain, at least, that this is the first time I've actually gone a full 7 days without getting around to blogging. I mean - I knew the new job would kill *some* of my ability to update the blog, but I never imagined...all of it.

This is what happens, though, when you're working a 60 hour week, plus another 12-18 hours of travel on either end, depending on the weather and flight patterns and traffic on the way to the airport and the butterflies in Timbuctu.

I really should have started this kind of hectic work lifestyle a few years back, when I was young enough to handle it. But...God's plan in everything. I just feel so...tired, all the time. When I get home, there's no time to rest, its time to work on the youth group lesson, do the laundry, re-pack, get the taxes finished, pay a bill, actually have a real meal, etc.. And that's on the weekends when there isn't a wedding to attend or a camping trip with the kids or something.

A three-day work week couldn't have come at a better time. This week's excuse for no blog updates will be the fact that I'm trying to kill myself via hurtling down snow covered mountains. If it doesn't work, expect another post, maybe sometime next week. When...I'm back at work, all the time.

I'm still a little confused as to how people in this line of work actually manage to meet someone, or even just date. Half of my team, I'm pretty sure, met their significant other through work. How sad is that?

Speaking of which, I have a big idea for a new ministry opportunity - that to come in a soon-to-be-blog post...

Of course, the nearly complete committal of brain-power to work has eliminated my ability to write anything decent, as evidenced by the crappy posting, lately, and yet the demands still exist...need to get together another piece for Relevant Mag (my buddy Garland, who started after me, has already gotten 2 in - here's the second). And I need to write a piece on opportunities to serve with the youth group for the church newsletter. That one has to happen this week - needs to make it into the June edition.

Oh, and yeah...then there's the blog, too. No idea when I'll get another Christian Carnival post up, let alone any other decent albeit random writing, let very alone even just a links post. Keep checking back, I beg you...

(I promise pictures, in the next week or two...how's that for incentive?)

Who ever thought, months ago - when my excuses for not blogging included falling asleep on my deck, or spending 12 straight hours on Soldier of Fortune - that come spring I'd be unable to blog due to...dare I say it...work.

They kept telling me its a feast or famine business. For weeks on end I begged for work to do, and no one I talked to had anything for me. Then...bam. 20 people need my services and the one that I did go with needs more hours than I can possibly give. And I'm fearing that it will be this way for the rest of my stint in consulting. No wonder the vacation plan is...generous.

I'm headed home the weekend after Easter, to reap the benefits of a late snow season. There were 3 days in March that some part of Tahoe actually did not get snow, so there is an awesome spring base going, its snowing right now, and its going to keep snowing for the next week and a half or so until I arrive. To reap the benefits.

Thursday I will ski. Friday, I will ski. Saturday. I will ski.

This is the longest I've ever gone in a ski season without skiing, thanks to a late snow season almost everywhere, including the northeast, which had basically no snow season at all. Although...in late August, I'm trying to put a trip together to Chile. Dave conquers Las Llenas. Yeah.

What else...

Youth group is going super awesomely. I haven't really done a good job of putting as much time as I should towards my lessons, but God's grace seems to be working, still, as ever, in spite of me. We have a core group of kids that continues to grow - new and old alike. And its totally a New York group of kids. We have kids from every walk of life you could imagine. With every kind of problem you could imagine. Its a challenging and rewarding experience.

Peggy and Kuz got married this Saturday - wedding on the UES and the reception was at an incredible restaurant in Tribeca. Pictures to come, hopefully. Needless to say, it was a blessed day with blessed friends. P and K are two of the most graceful, kind people I've ever met, and are obviously (and that's a word I'm trying to eliminate from my vocabulary) perfect for one another.

So that was Saturday, and Sunday...well, it started out normal - church, youth group, but then I headed back to Hunter, where Redeemer was putting on the first open forum in a while - The Spiritual Music of John Coltrane.

It was truly a spiritual experience. Grammy award winning musicians, playing the music of a deeply spiritual, deeply humble man - a night I'll never forget.

I closed my eyes when they played Alabama. Its the song Trane wrote after hearing MLK Jr.'s sermon after the 4 little girls were killed in the church bombing. Dave's dad introduced it that way, as Trane's musical rendition of that sermon...and that's exactly what it is. You can feel all the emotion of the era...the south...the pain and the sorrow...the trust and the perseverance. There's no way to put it into words.

The music takes you there. You feel it.