Anger Managemen

I'm not going to write much tonight. I say that now, but we'll see where I actually end. I'm really mad right now is all, and all I need to do is spend more time venting. Venting never helped me. It only makes things worse because it convinces me that I am justified in my anger. I really do have an anger management problem though. It's rare that I do get angry, but when I do, it's highly likely that I'll overreact about something or blow up and burn a bridge or two. The only thing is that my bridges are a lot bigger and more important these days than when I was growing up. Sometimes I just wish I didn't care. I wish nothing bothered me and that I didn't care about anyone's feelings. But I do care, and to the point where it's futile. You can't please everyone all of the time, but whenever anyone is displeased with me it drives me out of my mind, so I'm being driven out of my mind a lot.

No amount of writing is going to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to close my door, watch a movie, and go to bed. I just want to be alone for a while.

The Full Intangible Circle

This is all jumbled up. I think it flows, but then again, it's late. I hope it makes sense to you.

Sometimes I don't think I appreciate my life enough. God called me out on the carpet today at the church Christmas party. It was just a passing comment, but sometimes passing comments to a broad audience are the ones that can hit you the hardest. "I really have come to appreciate this life God has given me." Randall said as he was proposing a toast of sorts to the gathering.

I find myself complaining or thinking things are unfair or limiting myself. I do that because I only see things as how they are now, now tomorrow, not really yesterday all that much either. Is that how I am supposed to view my life? I know that scripture emphasizes faith like a child, but I didn't really realize what that meant until now. It's actually quite complex. Nothing is as difficult for me as reverse learning and that's just what child-like faith is. It calls for us to let go of the complexities of life and to walk in the confidence of the unseen. How ridiculous that sounds to an educated man! But education can be quite burdensome in itself. It makes apparent to the learner just how backwards the world is, and it is a vast understanding that increases the value of hope almost to an unattainable measure. Ignorance in exchange for hopelessness, one darkness in exchange for another.

I suppose that what we are supposed to do with education is to better this life as best we can, even in the face of the seemingly most hopeless of existences. That is the noble calling, but since when was nobility something admired by our culture? I mean if nobility makes money, then sure, but otherwise it sorta throws a wrench in the fine oiled capitalist machine that our daily lives are founded on.

So all of the darkness of education is tied back in to the difficulty of sharing that with faith, or at least, faith like a child.

Perhaps a child-like faith demands that we see our adversities not in our own educated or uneducated perspectives, but in the perspective of God. In that case, regardless of how large it seems, it is actually very small, and why worry over something very small?

But the educated mind wants to grab a hold of every detail and measure it out, to become involved, to solve problems, to wrestle with Truth. It is very difficult for that same mind to depend on a God who demands our dependency on Him.

But what is the mind for if not for the development of it's fullest potential? What was God's design in giving man a mind? Sometimes it feels like we were set up for failure just with the way our minds work, but this was evidently man's choice made in the beginning and every day since.

Then comes the devil. Because I know the power of my own mind and the passions and desires of the sin within me, I find it hard to believe in Satan's intervention in my personal affairs. Not only is it unspecified as to whether or not the Devil can be omnipresent, but I'm capable of falling just fine on my own. I don't feel spiritually powerful enough to necessitate an entity to waste time setting me up for failure. If I ever did have an encounter with the Devil, I'd consider it more of an encouragement than a moment of fear. I mean, if I could piss off the Devil enough to gain his personal attention, I must be doing something incredibly right and important in the course of God's will. But I don't really know if the Devil has to deal with too many of us Americans. We do a dandy job of falling on our own because we cannot master our minds or our flesh. Turn on the radio, turn on the TV, surf the web, drive your car on the highway. The feeble constitution of our minds and our flesh is not just product of our every-day lives, but a necessity, pulling it all into a full and seemingly inescapable circle. If the poison doesn't work, your children don't eat.

I want freedom from that, but would I be willing to give up everything required to receive it? The rich man and Jesus. To me, that story speaks not to a man, but to a country, and even more intangible than that, an idea.

I'm out for the night folks. Peace and love.

The Harder Days of Work

Work is getting to the breaking point right now. I worked 92.5 hours last week as of Sunday night. Because we needed it, my coworker and I took the day off yesterday and got some solid R and R. Before that, the other guys here at the local office were grateful that we have been here helping them. Today, however, they could do nothing but harass us about the time off. They haven't had time off in a while, but that is no one's fault but their own. This job is so incredibly screwed up, and all they can seemingly do is try to place blame on anyone but themselves. They're even trying to place blame on us, the one's who volunteered to help them. I regret having volunteered. I will never work to help them again. Any service of mine given to them will only be out of following a direct order from the company. They have no appreciation or respect for those of us who have left our homes to come and pick up their broken pieces.

They have begun to set us up for failure. They look for ways to snare us, so we have to be on our toes. I am liable to break and bite someone's head off. They tend to aim at me because I'm smaller than my coworker, but what they don't realize is that I've been victimized as a small person my entire life and that my temper and sense of vengeance is a great deal more terrible than that of my coworker. I am small, but I will lay into them if they press me too hard. I already let my supervisor at the Nashville office know. He understands and is looking in to the matter. Evidently there haven't been too many wholesome encounters between Memphis and Nashville branches. But it feels good to have bigger and more powerful people in the company standing in my corner.

In fact, today I received an e-mail from the CEO of the company giving me an accolade for a job I did with Ron at Tennessee Tech. The CEO of the company thinks I overachieve the standard and set and example to the rest of the company. That makes me feel pretty good. I think I can use that to endure the rest of the week with diplomacy instead of war. It's really difficult though. I have a hard time refraining, and it burns me that they underestimate me so much. I must be patient though and think of other things. I've been singing when no one is around just to calm my soul. I pray a lot too. I just need the Lord to deliver me from my sense of pride and give me a heart of peace.

I pray for that church too. I feel an unnatural sense of evil when I am there. The spirit of self-indulgence has a foothold under that roof, and I sense the Lord in opposition to the projects completion. He has been merciful to my coworker and I, but the rest of the team is under threat of losing their jobs. The gear is also not coming together as planned. There are freaky things happening that really make you think. For instance, we were installing two $65,000 projectors and they were sitting on their box on the floor. This is a new building mind you. We then moved the projectors into their positions and a few minutes later it began to pour rain. Turns out there was a leak in the new ceiling... just above where the projectors were sitting before we moved them.

I don't know. I feel like I'm in the middle of something that I would rather not be a part of, but I am all the same. I'm tired more than anything, but I only have two more days left to deal with them and this place. Then I am going back to Nashville. I miss Lindsay! 

Wires and Zombies

The work has been hard and very demanding for the past four days, but satisfying. My body is finally adapting to the heavy work hours and I'm already at 48 as of the end of the day today. I'll have three more days after this to work, and the hours will be even longer. I might perhaps double that number. But I've been doing my best to stay healthy given the time of year, the weather, and the limited sleep. I'm on vitamins and I am drinking vitamin energy drinks, mostly to keep myself awake, but they also double as immunity boosters. So far so good. I have a bit of a runny nose and an occasional headache, but I'm surviving. I just need to last until Sunday really. That's the most demanding of the workload even though I will be staying in Memphis until next Friday.

I'm documenting the immensity of the job with a disposable camera. I'm doing my best not to piss anyone off while I take pictures, but I think most of them understand my reasoning. It's big and it's messed up. We're working on a five thousands seat church, installing a huge video broadcasting system in for them. So far, very little has gone right with the job. Some of the guys are saying that it is cursed, but I've been on several jobs that were like that. None of those jobs required, however, that I work 12 hour and up days for over a week. I don't know though. Sometimes I wonder if God might be angry at the amount of money being spent to appear "state of the art". It seems that spirituality might have very little to do with millions of dollars worth of technology and more to do with a personal commune with the Lord. I know they are my companies clients, but it is really hard not to judge these people. It just seems like such a squandering of blessing, especially knowing that some of the things that have been installed are more for ego than for utility, but God can use all things to his glory. After all, what do I, a simple young adult, know of the complexities of theology and how to run a church? I'm young, full of passion, and limited in experience. But can't experience also blind you to the truth? The routine of comfortability and the comfortability of routine can often times become an iron circle, never acknowledged by the older more "experienced". It seems to me that the spirit of discerning somehow quietly dies and is replaced by the spirit of deciphering what is and what is not comfortable to one's personal self somewhere along the weary trail of life.

Ah, let me stop bitching. That's all the world needs is another activist bitcher to grumble and complain about things he has no control over.

Anyways, we've pulled so much cable that it's getting in our heads. My coworker and I both had bad dreams last night about pulling cable. I don't know what his was, but mine was that we were pulling cable that ran through a conduit under the building, under ground (which is completely normal). The element of surprise was that the conduit ran through an Indian burial ground, and because of this, the wire that was passed through that conduit came out on the other side with a curse upon it. Anyone who touched that wire would turn into a zombie.

I know I know... WAY too many zombie movies out there, it's been done. But hear me out.

So in the dream a bunch of us started turning into zombies and we were trying to figure out why. Eventually we found out about the wire thing, but it was after we had already pulled a bunch of wire and we didn't know exactly which wires they were because it was something like thirty wires out of a thousand that were infected. I might also note that you could be infected through a biting. Now the number of wires is accurate to our actual job. We have handled close to a thousand individual wires, all of which runs through conduit running both through the ceiling and under ground. Finally we wound up in this cloistered room. There were zombies outside the door trying to get it and it was just me and my sister.

This is where it got way too scary.

We were talking about what we were going to try to do and then all of the sudden I had a sudden urge to try and bite Grace. I snapped out at her, but didn't. I stopped myself and apologized as if it was casual, but then realizing what that must mean. We spent some time freaking out and then I sat down. I told her that I wanted to give her my last wishes before I turned, but that she needed to kill me before I did turn completely. So once I was done saying my peace, she had to kill me (with what, I don't know, the dream wasn't that specific). So I sat against a wall opposite a large mirror and I began to tell Grace to tell everyone that I loved them and to tell Josiah about me when he got old enough and that I was sorry about everything I ever did that may have hurt anyone. As I was going through all of this my skin started to sag and change to a greenish color and my muscles all tightened up. She was trying to hold my hand, but I just couldn't sit still as I saw myself changing faster and faster. I was shaking and crying and scared and then... of course... the alarm clock.

Get up, get dressed, and go run some more wire.

So yes, freaky dream, not much good sleep last night, hard work, getting through it. That's the story. I'll write more if I have time. Peace and love.

Notepad

I leave tomorrow for Memphis. There's a lot I haven't done yet to get ready to go, and I leave at 2. I think I can pull it all together in a few minutes though. I imagine they'll be working us pretty hard this week. I don't know if I'll be taking my computer yet or not either. I'd like to, but then again, it's one more thing to lug around.

I'm really tired right now. Today was a busy day. It was enjoyable too, mainly because we got out and did something beyond the typical. That said, I'm here in my room, knowing that I have to get up early tomorrow, but I'm still here just sitting and writing late at night.

I think I'm going to start carrying a note pad around with me. Stuffy does it a lot, and it's a way for him to write down his thoughts and observations throughout the day, and I think that would be good for me. I just get here on most nights wanting to write something, but I'm fresh out of ideas because I don't really retain my thought throughout the day until night. I just address them one at a time, and then out they go. I'd like to get back into writing music again too. I just suffered too many confidence busters as of late. People really don't like listening to my music that much, but I can't let that stop me or I'd be a liar. I have always said that I write my music for myself. That should be able to stand trial.

I guess I'll be going to bed now. I should try and get a solid night's sleep. Sound in the morning. Blah.

Steady Hands

Time to do some writing. I've been slowly but surly coming out of my funk, dealing with my thoughts as best I can. After all, I am my worst enemy. It's all my mentality, and I know just where I am the weakest.

I think trying to establish confidence in myself is the first step in recovery. My grandfather once told me that when you say to yourself "Ah, you idiot!" or "Duh, why didn't you think of that earlier!", it really reaches down into your sub conscience and you start believing that about yourself. I think that's true for me especially. I have convinced myself that I'm not good enough.

That being the case, whenever I find myself in a difficult situation, I feel that it is my responsibility to see it through, but I don't have the confidence in myself to get there. I get depressed about it.

So for the past few days I've been trying to focus on brighter and higher things. I usually start of my day with a Psalm or a Proverb to think about as I drive to work. I just need some discipline and I think I'd be all right. We'll get there though.

Anyways, right now I have to get back to studying for my CTS certification. I have one last chance to pass, and that's tonight. I also am going to Memphis all next week. That's final as of yesterday.

Peace and love.

Me Vs. Me

All of my problems seem to be stemming from my blatant inability to yield responsibility or control over a situation. I always feel like there's something I should do, or should have done to prevent adverse outcomes to situations I encounter on a daily basis. I don't know why I'm so negative all of the time. I can't be at peace.

It seems to me that this place I am in, whenever I am here, leads deeper and darker or around and around, like a dog chasing its tail. There is an excessive amount of negative energy floating around from day to day, and when you start focusing on it, you only see more and more. It never breaks. That's what leads to depression. It's a place where everything is against you and you are completely void of hope for something better.

When I'm really stressed out, I'm just tired all of the time. I don't want to really do anything or get out. I'm just fine sitting and doing nothing.

But right now I'm going to just sit on my bed for a while and be quiet with my eyes closed. I'll do that for about half and hour and then I'll make dinner. After that I'm going to study for my certification test. I take that tomorrow.

Other word on the street is that I might be going to Memphis next week. I hope not, but if I do, oh well. I'll be there with Jason and he's a pretty good guy. Well, I'm out.

Peace and love.

Problems

I'm really freaking out right now. I feel like every little thing that could go wrong, pretty much is. My phone just broke in time for me not to be able to make my payment on time. The awesome tool set I got from my parents for an early Christmas gift is broken. The batteries won't charge, so I have to see if I can exchange it. I just payed $36 for a new phone battery that isn't even the root of the broken phone, so I'll have to find time to be able to take that back and exchange it. I'll have to find money for a new phone entirely. I've got bills to pay and my money is running thin. My room is a mess. I have a huge test that I have to take on Thursday for my CTS certification, and I've got a lot to study. I'm having a real hard time finding peace right now. No matter what I do, now matter how hard I try, there is always something or someone against me. My stomach is twisting.

Growlings

I'm growing a lot right now. I can feel it. Pretty much every where I turn I face the option of feeling sorry for myself, or standing up and being a "man" about things. Now I say being a "man". That word has many definitions. My definition of being a "man" is taking the hard way because it has more to offer. That simply means that you dwell on higher things, you desire the right an honorable rout in every situation, and you desire to make Christ your center.

I strive for it all the time, but I'm better at failure than I am at success. I think the hardest part has to be being hated and ostracized by the people around me. It wears me down that the people I care about feel hate towards me and conspire behind my back. But we all have the option to choose the path we take. Hatred or love, selfishness or servitude. As hard as it is, I will continue to strive to be the servant. I will fight the hatred in my heart and my selfish nature in order to be the man I need to be.

Too Late to Be Writing

I'm sitting here, still awake. I could go to bed if I wanted to, but I just don't feel done yet. I've been trying to rid my mind of stress all weekend. Let me tell you, I don't think this apartment has ever been so clean. I also made a 45' RCA to 1/8" cable to run from my computer in my room to the DVD player in the living room so that I can play my iTunes playlist on the surround speakers. I wanted something to listen to while I cleaned.

I'm still feeling it though. The stress. I just can't stop thinking about finding the solution to all of my problems if I look hard enough or if I make myself right with God enough, but ultimately it all falls on my abilities to take action. But I'm so tired of taking action and I'm tired of all of the world's hardships that keep knocking me down. I just want peace, but I keep setting myself up for failure.

I think the hardest part of being me is my sense of obligation to keep everyone I come into contact with happy. It just can't be done! And what's more is that whenever I let go of that, on those very very rare days, I just feel so much more happy.

I want to get to the bottom of that. I know that it's in there somewhere, the root of it all. I try to eat the right foods, get enough sleep, keep my task list filed down, and fill my life with enough culture, pray enough, but it never seems enough. It feels like a fire that can't be quenched. I just need to stop sometimes, but it's so hard. It's so hard to just let it all go.

I'll Do the Best I Can

This week was really stressful. I was offered a job in Raleigh on Tuesday morning that would have appeared to be a great opportunity, but initially I didn't take it so well. What it meant in my life was that I had to let go of everything I've held on to for the past five years, and move on... all in about two weeks. That was a lot to chew in one day. So time progressed and I got the council I needed in order to make a better decision and I finally declined Friday. I did it because I just don't think I'm ready and I don't think I have the experience I would like to have in order to feel secure in the position I was offered. I'm staying here for the time being, and I'll get by.

On top of all of that, little stresses have been wearing me out. I'm plagued by the sense of duty I have to make everyone around me happy, and it just can't be done. I'm not going to try anymore. I don't have the resources to do it and it's making my life miserable. I'm not going to feel bad every time I disagree with someone, or every time I say no.

So I'll get through these next few days. I'll be going to NC on Wednesday with Lindsay. I've got a few more Christmas gifts to buy and then I'm putting up the No Vacancy sign. I just need to figure out a way to better manage my stress. I need to accept the fact that I can't fix this world and it's people and all of their problems. I'll do the best I can.

Peace and love.

The Feeling of Death

There is no way through life on an easy path, at least, not for me. I have come to a crossroads, completely at random, out of the blue. Never before in my life have I been stood before two choices that would cause me to be wrenched apart. I am a weak man sent to sacrifice my son on the alter before God. I have been given three days to find myself in obedience with God, to trust Him, that he holds Lindsay and I in His highest.

But right now all I see is blackness in a place where I fear I must go. Or do I see the wisdom and sacrifice in staying in here? Three days to analyze my entire life and see if I have the strength to let go of everything I hold dear and start over again.

There is so much of me that I wish could be mended now. There is so much of me that has been uncovered, strengths and weaknesses that I did not know I had.

What is the most frightening part of all of this is? Not only do I fear being separated from Lindsay for an unknown duration of time, but I prayed last week in my car that God would take me and do whatever it takes to break me into the faithful servant that I wish to be, but lack the strength to be. Those were pretty much my exact words. Is this the answer to what I prayed? Did I know what I was praying? Is this just a test? Am I to take Isaac to the alter and will the Lord provide a ram in his place? Can I submit to the Lord? Won't it hurt no matter what I do?

I need more sleep tonight than usual. I will go to Bible study to share my heart tomorrow morning before work. I need all of the prayer I can get. Please God.

Peace and love.

Climbing, but how fast?

Driving around Nashville provides it's problems. I've never lived in a city where 9 out of ten times while driving around, I will see a wreck. Maybe I won't actually see it happen, but I will see it. It is true that this isn't exactly Atlanta, where cars are manufactured all twisted together so as to face the inevitable. This is just a larger city. But in all honesty, I never remembered Greensboro, NC, which is almost the size of Nashville, to be this crazy with traffic. I don't know... I'll get over it just as long as I stay out of accidents.

I had a review with my boss today. He can be very intense at times and I had a hard time figuring out if he was trying to point things at me in particular, or if he was just making a point in general. He was cursing and speaking forcibly and condescendingly about things that are wrong with the install crew. I wasn't exactly comfortable, but I was hearing what he had to say and thinking back through my memory to see if I had violated any of the TI Commandments. I told him where my goals lied and what I was going to do, roughly, to get there. I have ambition, and when I see something that I want, I will have it. I told him that I am quite content where I am because I'm learning the basics. I also told him that my education has prepared me for something a little higher than where I currently am, but by being here I am building an important foundation and gaining lots of valuable experience. All of this is true. Finally I asked him what he had heard about me on the field, and he said he's heard nothing but good things. That means I must be doing a good job. I'm going to work harder though, just because I know I can be the best out there if I focus. I'm not trying to beat anyone out, but this is the standard I hold myself to. I feel compelled always to be rising to the top.

Peace and love.

Gold 1995 Toyota 4-cylindar Confessional (With a sqeek in the steering wheel)

Going against God. What does that mean to me? I think what it immediately translates to is "guilt", deep seated painful guilt. Unlike most of you readers, I tend to sin a lot in a 24 hour period, and I'm pretty conscious of it. I know when I have gone against God's will for my life. I often feel like if I would have been there, I would have gorged myself on the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sin isn't ugly. It's beautiful. It's like a poison arrow frog. It's colorful and you are drawn to it, but it will kill you if you touch it.

It's really only visible as sin to me the first few times though. After a while it kinda falls back on the radar as just something you "struggle with" before it completely fades from the picture. Addicted sin is the worst for me and at this age, that's where most of it lies. It's sin that you have created space for in your life. You feed it and it hangs out with you.

I spent a while in the car today just praying, and not the stereotypical prayer either. I just had a conversation with God that I might have with a mentor. It felt good because I didn't feel condemned. I think that condemnation or disappointment is the hardest part about seeking counsel. I'm so used to not being helped when I open myself up to others for counsel. Instead, most of what I get is this kind of "look down to the ground, feel shocked, and just be quietly brooding" effect that really just helps me deal with sin. That's how we should always do it (sarcasm). But seriously, when most people open themselves up to someone, it's because they already feel guilty. Your job at that point, if you are relied on, is to be strong enough to help that person cope and get through it.

But fortunately for me, I have fallen into a small group of guys that believe in sin, a. and know how to help others with it. The thing is, we all sin, but fortunately, we all don't struggle with the exact same ones. None of us try to appear as super saints to each other. We get down and dirty and bring out stuff that most people wouldn't admit. But that's the first part to healing. That's why God gave us the church to begin with, but it really isn't like that anymore for the most part. Now a days, that's the last place where you would find someone openly struggling with sin. That's where people go who are "fixed". They never have deep sin struggles, they never have doubts about God, they never have to apologize to anyone for anything they do. They are righteous, set free, and completely healed... Unless you look too closely. I believe one of my biggest struggles growing up was believing that to be true about people that claimed it. Eventually, if you hang around someone long enough... well... sin can't be covered by our actions just like fire can't be covered by paper. It will eventually burn through. Everyone has something under their bed that they won't talk about because, and this is what was revealed about myself today, we are more worried about social condemnation than we are of eternal damnation. We will hide sin that is completely visible to God from each other because we are more conscious of what they might think than of what He has promised.

The truth of the matter is that God wants us to have each other to lean on, to confess to, and to encourage. I'm not saying that guilt never exists. Sometimes one would go to another and point out a sin that they might be quite fond of. This responsibility, I believe, is held for someone of deep trust to that person, but I'm sayin, it exists.

Confession was never a part of my daily life growing up, so I'm learning a lot about it now. I think to most kids, confession is what happens right before a punishment or a guilt trip. But what I'm learning about confession is that it is what happens right before God cradles you in His arms, and what happens right before the deepest and most dependable relationships in your life are realized.

That is all.

Peace and love.

Hole Saw

I keep feeling these growing pains. I don't know if I would even go as far as to call them pains. They're mostly just growing sensations. My eyes are opening to new experiences and I'm learning so much in such a short amount of time. I don't really know what to make of it all. I'm just trying to grasp onto something familiar so my mind doesn't spin out of control.

But at the same time, change is my passion, as long as it's good change.

Today I did a lot of work in the warehouse, just doing inventory or setting up for other jobs. The office is kinda slow this week, but that's fine with me. I like the shorter hours and everybody seems a lot less stressed out. I had a killer Gyro for lunch and then I went back to the office to get ready for one quick job at Vanderbilt. I was installing a fan inside of a credenza so that all of the machinery inside would keep cool by air circulation. To get it done I was going to need to cut a 5" diameter circle out in the side panel, but what would I use to cut? Space is limited. I called my dad and we talked about it for a while. I knew he had more woodworking experience than anyone in the office. We were talking about routing or just hole sawing the panel, so I went to Home Depot to look around. Routers were too expensive, so I mingled around looking for the hole saws like I belonged there.

I don't think anyone bought it. I always feel like I don't belong in those places, even when I'm geared up. I walk in to that building and I feel the eyes of experience glaring at me. I look like I'm 12. That doesn't help. It's the only reason why I have facial hair. It lessens the amount of times people card me for being in restaurants that specify a 21 year old cut off point. They do that so people can smoke there which is a new law that isn't going so well in the South.

I found a five inch hole saw though and I bought it along with the attachment piece. It cost $50 total! Good thing the company bought it. I don't have money for that kind of stuff.

So when I got there I got to work pretty fast. I didn't expect it to take long. I just needed to clear, cut, screw, plug, clean, and leave. So I went about cutting. Cutting was hard because I was using a high powered cord drill. The hole saw would just grab onto the wood and try to fling me across the room, so my wrist might be soar tomorrow. But I got it all cut and it installed with ease (that doesn't happen often). Cleaning was fun because there was no filter in the shop vac I used. That means that when I suck in dirt, it flies around inside really fast, and then it gets spit back out. I had to be very careful as to empty it out frequently into the trash so that it wouldn't make more of a mess than when I started.

So I finished at four and here I am. It's five. I've just been home taking it easy. I might finish my gyro for dinner, have a few beers. Maybe I'll take a nap. That would be nice. Seems like I always close out this journal with mentionings of desired rest. Peace and love.

Reliability

I look out and around and I see so many people with greater ambition than myself. I've been working at the Vanderbilt school of business for the past several days, and I see guys my age walking around who already look like they've been pushing paper for seven years. They think nothing but business. I spent some time thinking about what I would have turned out like had I chosen to buckle down even more than I did in school. What if I had chosen to be a balls-to-walls business man? What if all I ever thought about was just one thing?

That got me to thinking about reliability. I think I'm reliable, sometimes. I know people who don't think I'm reliable. I let people down a lot, but I also am prone to biting off more than I can chew. What ends up happening is that I eventually let someone down because I still reserve time for myself. How do you balance that? I have never felt right being able to legitimize spending time to my self. I always feel like I could be doing something more productive.

I don't know. Maybe I could be a little bit more productive. Maybe I could afford to be a little more focused. I'll see what I can do. But for now I'm really just in the mood to relax. I'll see what happens in the next few months.

Peace and love.

Love of Suffering

I always think of all of these great things I could write about during the day, but the problem is I never etch them down on anything, so when it comes time to write at night, I've got nothing left. We'll see if it works its way out while I type.

I woke up early this morning so I could get a head start at the office. It wasn't that hard. I must have slept pretty well. But in all of that time of getting up and getting ready, I never felt like I was about to go out the door and face a Monday. I didn't think of today as Monday, just another day. I think if days of the week didn't have names, I would be a lot better off in my morale. I'm learning to sort through life. I can be complicated just figuring out where money comes from, where it goes, and why I find myself thinking about it so much. I envy the people who can just sit back in faith and legitimately not worry about that kind of stuff. To say "It'll just happen" and seriously mean it is a level of faith that intimidates me. I'm trying to be cautious about what worries me. I express my stress on these pages often, but solutions aren't really my focus. It's all about the suffering. I feel like I can say that because I know I'm not the only one who has a twisted attraction to suffering. There are plenty of us out there, especially here in America. It makes us feel real and it sedates the mundane sensation of every-day-life.

I don't know why it is so important for the human psyche to have others feel sorry for them. At the very root of it, a pity party manifests in us because we want attention. Why would I ever question why? Of course I know the reason. We need other people, and we need to know that they're thinking about us and that they are concerned for us. We can have the whole world in our pockets, but if that one person we admire doesn't pay attention to us, we find ways to focus on our suffering so that we can derive comfort from those around us. In effect, we're an army of people starving for affection, love, beyond that, the manifestation of a personal and perfect love.

That's how it tends to start out at least, and it varies with age. We want that love. But it gets more complicated. We end up just wanting that feeling that makes us feel expectant of love, and it backs in farther. Eventually we just end up suffering all the time, expecting to, needing to.

I took an hour break between writing those two paragraphs. Now I'm totally not in the mood to write anymore. Peace and love.

Stress

I'm not coping well right now. I worked way over what I thought I was going to today and, for that matter, I haven't not worked over time in the past two months, NC/SC trip excluded. Nothing stresses me out more than working overtime simply because... I have stuff I need to get done at home. So I come home every night and something new needs to be done. I have to do laundry, I have to do the dishes, I have to pay bills. There's always something that needs to be done around here, partly because three grown men live in this tiny basement apartment. The dishes, for instance, are insane! I don't know where they are all coming from!

Stress management. I don't think I've got it down yet.

Weekends are another thing. They have turned into my "catch up with your life" days. I'm always busy on weekends trying to catch up, whether it be with people or with responsibilities. I don't feel like I'm even near to being on top of things right now. Maybe I just need one solid night of doing crap until it's all done.

I HATE THAT DOG! My landlord's dog barks for no reason at all because it is a small dog and has no concept of... well... anything. Big dog barking I can handle, but the frequency of a small dog bark drives me to violence!

Now I have to think about dinner. I usually enjoy cooking but I've just worked so hard. Sometimes I just want to not have to, but that costs more money. Money that I don't have at the moment.

Tomorrow is going to be a nice change of pace. I'm working on a different site with different people so my mind will probably be able to relax a little bit. I had a really great time at Bible Study this morning even though I almost didn't go. I sat up and had a battle with myself as to whether or not I should just stay in bed, but I'm glad I went. I need the fellowship really bad right now.

I get to sing this weekend! I'm filling in for some guy that couldn't make it and it's an extra long set. I enjoy singing! It's also daylight savings this weekend! I will enjoy the extra hour of sleep!

I'm going to make hot wings. Peace and love.

Want To's

I'm doing my best right now to get organized. It's hard sometimes to know where to start, but I've figured myself out well enough to know that when I'm stressed out it's because I'm neglecting something or several things. I feel like after work I just get really lazy. I was actually quite productive today all because I got to it first thing after I got home.

Tomorrow I'll do a little bit more organizing, self discipline, all that jazz. I want to start reading more. I want to eat healthier. I want to exercise more. All of that is going to take discipline and habit.

I need to go to sleep earlier. That's the other thing I was forgetting.

Peace and love.

Back and Around

I just finished spending several days that I got off from work, one of which was used to visit High Point, and the others were used to go to Ginger's wedding (Matt's oldest sister) in SC. Before I left I thought it would be this great idea to take my motorcycle on the trip, really open it up on the highways. I admit, having it around was kinda fun. It was a time of actualization as I rode it around my home town and I got to take Matt and Catherine on a short ride at the farm. But the rumors are true. It is not the most comfortable way to travel, nay, it is quite the opposite. Battling 80+ mph winds, bugs, rain, and saddle soars all accumulated into one exhausting experience. On my trip down to SC I left the night before the morning I had initially planned to leave. I was trying to beat the rain. I did for half the trip, but the other half I spent trying to convince myself that it was a lot like riding a jet ski. When I got to Matt's house, I turned over my boots, and it was like a movie. I poured water out of my boots onto the ground, lots of water. I also almost doubled the mileage on my bike. I put over 1000 miles on it in that one trip! That's a lot considering that when I left I had 1500 miles that I put on it over a three month duration.

But the weekend over all was good. I really needed to see all of the people that I saw. I thought about my faith and my relationships and pretty much who I am and what I want out of life. It was refreshing to see two people who truly love each other and love the Lord so passionately get married, especially two people that I admire so much.

As for my job, well, that would be sound. I ran sound for the wedding, and it went off without a hitch. I was thrilled at that. With all the cues I was setting up and different mics on, I was sure something was going to go awry, but not this time. I felt on top of my game. I also did some music playing both at the wedding and this morning at church. I love playing for people who live in cities that still love and admire music.

Coming back to Nashville was a bit disheartening. I don't know how to pin point it, but my life here seems lacking. I think it's because I tasted so much of a good thing while I was back east, it just brought me to realize the negativity that I've allowed myself to be consumed by. It's hum-drum, it's frustrating, I'm over-extended, I'm cramped up. That's how this city makes me feel. I feel big in a smaller town. I feel like I'm needed and understood. It makes me happy to be a part of that.

I think a big part of it is that, being needed. I don't mean "needy" needed. One of the quickest ways to annoy me is to have a grocery list waiting for me, to just need me to do stuff for you. I can tell when I'm needed and when I'm being exploited. A certain amount of mutual respect and interest, even, dare I say, admiration... goes into being needed the way I like to be needed.

Someone says:
"Hey, you've got something I don't and I admire that. What do you think about this?"

That's a great feeling. It makes me feel like I've got a purpose. It makes me want to help people. I don't think this environment gives me that. I can't say that it's all external reasons, I mean, I haven't earned admiration. But none of the things that I thought were my strongest qualities seem to do very much in this city. I don't know, I'm just complaining right now. I need to shower up and go to bed. Peace and love.

Beautiful Cascading New

I haven't written in a while as I haven't had very much time to sit down and ponder. I've been quite active these past few days and right now I just need to reflect. I guess I'm just spread incredibly thin right now, like there's not enough of me to go around. Maybe I think I'm bigger than I actually am.

I'm sending out mixed signals to everybody and I can tell because of the way people look at me when they think I don't notice, on the other hand, some might just flat out ask me if I'm okay. Sure I'm okay. I'm fine, just a little thin, which means I'll shut down and just be entirely relaxed whenever I possibly can. When I'm not worried about things and I'm not having to conjure up emotion so people think I'm normal, I guess my face just looks sad. It's not, but it never fails to have the masses ask me what's going on.

I think that it's always possible to find things that are wrong in your life. I bet if I were to sit down and think about all of the bad things right now I might be able to enter a newly defined state of depression for myself, but there are ways around that aren't there? You have to delegate in yourself what you feel is worth focusing on and what you should just tally up as part of life. You should also try and find some good things too. This time in my life is where I usually find absolute beauty in nature, like the sky or the sunset, and I just sit there and get lost in them. Because I'm there right now, I think my bike ride to NC will be amazing. Let's hope it doesn't rain.

These pages that I write on, and this is a completely isolated thought, they don't talk back. Sometimes I go long stints without writing a thing because I'd rather talk with someone who can talk back. But these pages don't have anything to say to me when I write in them. It's like having a conversation with myself. My words are here and I can search through them and look at myself from a distance. Or maybe I write because I just want to remember. Those journals usually look like nothing at all to the passer-by. I yammer on and on about insignificant happenings, but that's all I've got sometimes. I find my memory serving me less and less these days. Things that I wish I could remember, I just can't. Maybe I'm just caught in so much beautiful cascading newness that I can't breath. Maybe I need to meet old friends. I'm sure I'll get a chance soon.

Peace and love.

Cool Air Coming

I got to work on time today but there was one problem. It was a hard hat area, and no one told me to bring a hard hat. This left me outside for close to an hour waiting for one to be delivered to me and it seemed so perfect. I got some time to think and pray and it was really just inspiring and peaceful. I remembered what it was like to hear God's voice in a loud way like I did a couple of years ago. I then thought of my purpose and my calling and how much I would be willing to sacrifice to find it. I also thought about the medium between being a self righteous legalist and a carefree self-pleasing "spiritualist". I've done my fair share of both. Great! Now it's time to understand that and be somewhere in the middle. That's where I feel that we should be. Let me describe it. It's someone who does the right thing no matter what the cost, but does it because love draws it out of him and no one else but him as far as he is concerned so why scrutinize the actions of others. If that makes things clear, then congratulations.

But my whole perspective on the rest of the day was much better. I still have little issues here and there about patience, but I'm willing to learn.

It is finally cool outside. Lindsay and I sat by the fire pit at her place tonight for a while and talked. I like fire pits and now I have access to two. We did have two here so I decided to split them up and take mine to her place being that she has a big yard full of sticks and branches ready for the burning. Here I haven't quite figured out where to get wood, but when I do, there shall be fires here as well.

Finally, I have insullation on my arms and I itch, but I'm going to try and sleep anyways. I'll have a journal on my job coming soon, but I haven't had much time to dedicate to it as of late.

Peace and love.

Cookeville Hotel Againz

I'm back in the Hotel at Cookeville for I don't know how long. I thought I would be for sure coming back tomorrow, but I don't know if that will be the case. I didn't find out until I got here that I might have wanted to pack more than just two days worth of stuff. Ah, but I also don't have my computer with me, or my guitar, so I'm having to use the business center computer. Lame. But anyways I've spent most of the night in the hotel twiddling my thumbs. We got back at around seven and I've just been here watching TV. I actually ordered a movie from my room. It was the new Harry Potter movie... but the sound didn't work, so I called in and had my money refunded. I guess I could have watched it in closed caption... but that's reading. That defeats the purpose of watching the movie instead of reading the book which is my entire plan.

So then I got a little hungry after watching Scrubbs for a while. I just walked over to the Burger King next door and got a milk shake. I'm working on that right now while I type to you. I think after this I might go up to my room and watch the Rocky marathon that's on Spike TV. Fun for dayz.

Next week I might get some time off to go back to NC. I know for sure I'm going to a wedding next weekend. Matt's sister Ginger is getting married and I'm DJ'ing. But I'd like just one extra day off of work to swing by home for at least a day. I've been thinking about taking my motorcycle. The weather is perfect and I feel really comfortable on the highway now. I've talked with several bikers about it and most of them feel that highways are more safe because it's all one direction and you've got shoulders to maneuver in if something unexpected happened. I like the sound of that. I would get my bike inspected before I drive though, and I would have to be ready to stop all of the time because I only get about 90 miles out of a tank. But I would also need to make sure I could pack everything in a backpack. I don't like the idea of saddle bags.

I've been thinking a lot lately about where the direction of my life is headed, both the good and the bad. I feel a lot different these days. I've changed a lot in just a few short months and I'm trying to figure out what parts are good and what parts are negative, because there is always a little bit of both.

Tomorrow I'm going to bust tale so I can get home tomorrow night. I've got a lot of work to get through, but it's not very strenuous. It's just tedious. I might not take lunch again like I did today. I got more done that way. Music has also been helping. Lindsay is letting me borrow her old iPod and so I've hooked that up to my mixing headphones and jacked up the volume to where it sounds like I have little speakers in the room (I guess that's technically what they are anyways). But music motivates me to work faster and more fluidly, but it's hard to get the kind of music I like and I can't use headphones because I think that's rude. If I'm working alone, I'll use them, but otherwise, I like to be able to hear what all is going on around me.

I'm rambling now which is an indicator that I should go watch Rocky.

Peace and love

Last Night in the Hotel

Work has been rough but it's getting done here in Cookeville. It has been interesting spending such a long duration of time with a long time sans-collegiate individual like my co-worker.

I have been getting easily frustrated at work though. Maybe it is related with my being out of my comfort zone, but either way, I just have to keep reminding myself that I am young and that everybody has to go through this at one point or another before they wear "the pants".

Right now I'm sitting at my computer whilest I watch TCM, some old chick flick or something. I have, behind me, a deep dish Dominoes pepperoni and mushroom pizza and a six pack of Samuel Addams Summer Ale. So tonight is devoted to relaxation and... well... laziness to the extreme.

I've been thinking about a lot of things while I've been gone, and I'm not quite sure how to articulate all of those thoughts. I had it down earlier today as to what I would write tonight. I do give it some thought, but it's rare that my inspirations ever make it with me through the day. I think of great lyrics or a great idea and I spend some time with it, but then I get caught in a draft and I forget everything.

So I guess I shall commence in my lazy evening. If I think of anything special, I will let you know.

Peace and love.

The Wilderness

My job requires a lot of dangling, and today required no less than that. I dangled. No I am not a pimp, nor do I "dangle" in the pimp sense, but in the "hey, you're the tallest, skinniest, lightest, most limber, and youngest guy in this company... Go up in the ceiling!" sense. I was going to have all of these pictures to show you that I took today. It's one of the biggest projects that I've been on since I've been with the company... Scratch that, not the biggest, but the coolest. Ron (my co-worker) and I are installing a new sound system into the Tennessee Tech School of Music auditorium. It's big and there's a pipe organ. There's also a 70 foot drop below me as I swing through the rafters, but I enjoy doing it. It's like a grown-up jungle gym. Don't worry, I'll be fine. There is dry wall between me and the floor, and from my inspection, it's 3-thick. That'll stop my light-ass body from falling through. Uh... but the pictures... oh yeah... I left my cell phone in my tool belt which I left on the job locked in the auditorium... so that's where my phone is. Doh! (slaps his face with the palm of his hand).

But man was today hard. I was pulling cable through conduit and my hands are raw and my back is soar. We spent 11 hours on the clock. I feel good about that though. Per dium and 11 hour days = bank!

Oh, so I guess I should tell you that I'm not in Nashville. I'm actually in a High Point sized town called Cookeville which is about 1.5 hours east of Nashvegas. I decided to bring my computer with me because I don't have a lap top, iTouches are too expensive, and why not, this computer is small. I'll be here all week though and my room is great. It's a king sized bed which I could lay on sideways and still be completely contained within its boundaries.

I've been needing this though, and I realize that now that I'm here. I feel like I've got these layers of stress that are melting off of my skin. I'm tired, sure, but I feel loose and more relaxed. There's been stuff happening that's been getting me pretty uptight lately back at the house. It's hard to be in a serious situation where all of your friends aren't on board with you, but in something like this, it's more of a desire than a need. It's been stressing me out that some of my friends can't understand me or be happy for me being with Lindsay. She's so great and she's found that part of me that I put away a long time ago, even before college, because I was ashamed and afraid of getting hurt. Is it so strange that I should want to spend a lot of time with her?

I think I just have a hard time apologizing when I don't think I'm wrong. That's strange because usually I'm a pretty broken person. It's easy for people to make me feel guilty about something because I've been conditioned to that kind of thinking. It's only been recently that God has really been trying to root that out of my life because that kind of thinking has nothing to do with Jesus. But because I always bounce from one extreme to another, when people around me mistake my charisma for being a show-off or me telling stories about stuff I've experienced as being arrogant, it no longer makes me feel guilty. It makes me feel angry. It makes me want to push them away. Either way I suppose I still hold on to the passive aggressive mentality. It either tells me that I'm wrong or that I will destroy them with my intensity.

This is all stuff that I guess I just need to go into the wilderness and figure out. I need more than just answers, I need to be changed from within. That's why this week will be good. I can't just go and rely on my comforts. I'm going to be working my ass off all day for the next several days and then coming back to my room to sit and contemplate. There's always TV, but I don't really like TV anymore. TV shows are lame (except for Metalocalypse, maybe Scrubbs, stuff like that). But I digress. TV is lame.

Peace and Love

Catch Up

Hey everybody. Just thought I'd fill with the latest. Things are good even though I'm still a little bit behind on my home responsibilities. I'm leaving town next week for two weeks though. The company is sending me to Cookville to work at Tennessee Tech. We have a huge system to install and I'm sort of looking forward to it and sort of not. I haven't been out of Nashville in several months, so it would be a nice change of pace, and I've always liked hotels. I don't think I'll enjoy having to be away from Lindsay for that long, but it might turn out to be good for us, who knows.

I haven't been to the Y at all this week because I get drained after work. I'll probably go either tomorrow or Friday, but it will take some motivation.

I'm really excited about a lot of different stuff right now. I can't really express it much, but that's how I feel.

Peace and love.

Settled

Things are much better now. Thanks, Lindsay, for pulling me out of that hole.

Targeting Myself

Work was kind of difficult today. I just got home and already I'm writing. That in itself should be an indicator. I was driving the van today and when I left the office, all was right in the world. I felt like I had my head sewed on pretty tightly. I thought that until I got to the job site and hour away and realized that after having loaded in the supplies for the job, I had completely forgotten about my tools. I was so ashamed, and I sank into a dark shroud of guilt and worthlessness. My co-worker soon arrived and I told him about it and he didn't get as discouraged as I would have imagined. He said he had enough tools for the both of us, but in all honesty, that mistakes was the outlet my frustration was looking for. My frustration's favorite target is myself. For me there is less guilt in being frustrated with myself than being frustrated with other people. The reason being is that I know what I'm thinking all the time, and so there is no confusion or misconception when I come to a final judgment. When I get frustrated with other people and it comes to the surface, it's pretty easy for them to convince me that I'm wrong and that I should be frustrated with myself instead of them. It's a cycle, but that's just the way I am.

I don't usually wear it on my sleeve though. I can keep my cool and forge ahead, while inside a huge battle commences. It's my "I've got things together" face, and I wear it well. I think I'm finding the source of things right now as I sit at home alone in the quiet. I think the source of it is all of the crap piling up behind me in my home life while I work. I need to take the night off just to get caught up. I'll probably still go swimming if I can get things done in time, but I'm going to be working hard at sorting out my mind today.

Maybe I'll talk more later.

Hufff

Well... I slept on it, and I'm still really aggravated this morning. I'm going to work either way. Maybe I can leave this baggage at home.

Aggravated

I'm not in the greatest of moods today. I'm not quite sure what the root of it all is, but I know what it's lashing out towards. I need a vacation, not just a day off to do other stuff, I mean a full blown vacation. I wanna take off on my bike somewhere, maybe like a day-trip to Asheville. That would be awesome. I just need some time to recharge, time that won't be coming for a good while. My weekends usually have one obligation or another that keeps me in town. I think I need to clear up my schedule for some R&R.

I get paid Friday. That's a good thing. For anyone who thought it would be a good idea to pay all of your bills at once... It isn't. Pay in lumps because you never know what extra expenses you will have along the way. I know for a lot of people that might be common sense, but you have to remember, I just started this game.

I didn't go swimming today. I needed to take a break. Besides, work was hard enough, me being in an attic again. This attic was built in 1935 and sits over the sanctuary of a Methodist Church. It was full of insulation, maybe asbestos, rat droppings, and brown recluse. Let's not forget the plus hundred degree temperatures. I know I know, it's a lot like my old home. I know, I should have felt at ease up there, but I think I've been living with AC now just long enough to be used to it. I took one look at it and drove to Walmart to buy a headlamp and face masks. I started making some dumb mistakes too. I hate that. I also hate how I don't seem to work quite as fast as the other guys, but I've gotta remember that I'm still fairly new.

I'm tired of typing. I'm done typing for now.

Peace and love

Lap Lanes

Firefox isn't working very well for me right now. It does that every once-in-a-while. It'll work just fine for a long time, and then it tends to just seize up. I smell a new update. Perhaps I'll just use Safari until they put one out.

Work was okay today. I mean there wasn't really much to it. I was installing small speakers into ceiling tile to serve as a masking system for a business office off of Harding. I spent most of my day on a ladder and it's getting to where I don't really care for ceiling tile all that much anymore. I say that as I look up and see the ceiling tile in my room. I just want to install speakers into them for some reason. Is that wrong? My landlord probably wouldn't be too happy if I just cut up his ceiling tile. Perhaps I won't.

After I got home, I decided to go to the Y and swim even thought I was already beat. I just want to keep it regular, and I'm starting to feel good again from it. When I got there... ya know... let me just say this. Don't ever go anywhere in Nashville between the hours of 5 and 7. Know that and you will save yourself a lot of frustration. So after a very short bout of swimming in a double lane pretty much full of people who could swim just about as fast as I tread water, I got out and hit the showers. I had road rage. It was like I was sitting in my car on a stereotypical Nashville road. Everybody drives slower than the speed limit and they get really pissed off if you drive normally. I will stick to my later night time slot. That seems to work out well for me.

Anyways, I'm out. Peace and love.

We Can't Fix it All

Having a role model isn't a practice that I'm familiar with. I think of when I was a kid, I maybe had one or two people on a list so that if I were asked, I wouldn't sound weird. I think Michael Jordan was one at some point, maybe my Tae Kwon Do instructor, Mr. Lamp, was a real role model for me. It's difficult to say. I've never felt like I needed one, though I did shape my actions around certain people who were close to me in order to please them, but that's not what a role model is in my opinion.

I have a role model now, oddly enough. I'm 23 years old and I picked up a role model. My pastor is a great role model to me because he just seems to have an incredible understanding of things to me. He thinks in a way that is approachable to me, and he's excited about it all the time. I want to be like that. I want to make sense to other people like that.

It's hard to remember that our role models are human sometimes though, and that they will undoubtedly fail us. Today was a rough day for me. I was in charge of front of house audio at church. That's a pretty big responsibility where we're from because we have to do a complete set up from scratch every Sunday in the amount of time that most churches do their sound check. I'm getting pretty crafty and knowledgeable in the ways of that room, but I'm no perfect. I don't think any audio guy is perfect. It's a rough job title though. It's the kind of job that no one gives a damn who you are unless you screw up. The only recognition you will get is negative. I knew that going in, but part of me still expects people to be relatively understanding. Ah, but that's a laugh. People look at a sound guy and they all think, "Hey, I could do that. Just put me behind the board and I'll know exactly what to do." Right. I thought that way once too. The truth is, there's so much to know it's almost impossible find your baring, but you do the best you can with the circumstances you are given. It's all about solving problems in a chain of possibilities as fast as you can. Then, you might just figure out that it's out of your control, much like today.

The senior staff at church wanted to get rid of us volunteers. There's so many glitches on Sundays that they thought it would just be a better investment to hire a staff engineer. That way if anything goes wrong, they can just blame the guy they pay. We like doing it though, so we came up with an alternative answer. We would start communicating better, get tighter in our performance and function more fluidly. Two of us, myself included, actually did spend the past four years studying the arts of Audio Engineering in depth at a university. We're not incompetent or without experience. So that's what we've been doing for the past two weeks or so. The senior staff has very short patience, evidently. There is no room for error, as there shouldn't be, but some things we just can't help.

Today we got everything set up in sort of a tizzy. One of the guys just completely forgot that he was supposed to be there, so he didn't show up, and I ended up calling Matt to come in and help. So Matt gets there and Dax shows up for an hour to help, and we do the best we can. We get things running, I get a house mix, and I set up the recorder and get the proper levels. Things turn out well. The service starts and the pastor gets up to speak. His mic works, but the EQ sounds a little thin, so I asked Eric to come and help me out with it because my ears just felt burned out. His would be fresh and he would be able to tweak the EQ a little more efficiently than I. He did, and again, things were going well. That is until the prayer in between worship songs. The pastor stands up to pray and we note this, so his fader goes up right before he speaks, but... nothing. No signal. What's wrong? A dead battery? Did he turn his mic on? He fidgets with it for a moment on stage, but still nothing. It's nothing on our end, so I run up to check with him once the band starts back up and he sits down. When I got there, I asked him if his battery level was fine and he looked up at me. I'll never forget that face. So much anger forced behind a shroud of disappointment that I had embarrassed him in front of everyone. So when he gets up for the sermon, he told the entire congregation that he was suppressing anger over the failing audio, and he used it as an illustration to talk about God's grace. That's great. I have nothing wrong with an illustration of God's grace. I do have a problem with an illustration of God's grace at the expense of me and the entire tech team. That was not our fault. It was the mic not being turned on when it should have been, but it was turned on on our end. I'm not pointing fingers, but I am. That was not our fault.

The sermon goes on, and the audio sounds pretty good. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. The band plays again, and I'm pretty happy with the mix as well as the recording. So then the sermon ends. I go to finalize the disc that we recorded on, and the burner won't recognize it. I open it up and look at the disc, and sure enough, the sermon is printed on it, but it still fails to recognize. At this point, I'm crushed. This is my fault to, or will be. I thought back to the power surge that we received when someone in the back flipped a circuit earlier in the day. I just thought the power faded, but then I saw my computer and it was shut down, which meant that all the equipment completely lost power too, but most of it will restart itself, unlike my computer. This means that when the disc was put into the burner, it set up the disc properly, but then the power faded and it interrupted the disc. Because of that, I have a feeling that once it had burned everything, it could no longer recognize a continuity in the disc and so it would not finalize. That is just a theory. Perhaps it was just a bad disk, but it was my fault none-the-less.

It's hard to face sometimes, the fact that our role models are human. I was crushed by the look he gave me, and I still can't get it out of my head. Maybe he didn't even realize it at the time. But it causes me to shift my trust a bit. Maybe having a role model is foolish. I should just continue down this road of figuring out how to be my own man. Maybe I'm just to chicken-shit scared to bring it to him. I'm going to wait a few days to ponder on it, and then I might say something, if not for me, then for the rest of the tech team.

Peace and love

Spinning Wheels

Getting started in life can be rough sometimes. There's so much to learn just in the place you live. I currently live in the moderately sized city of Nashville. I've known the streets for about four years now, so getting around isn't as much of a problem, but making myself official in this place has been a bit of a task. Dealing with government bureaucracy has been a bit taxing. I had to take a full day off Friday just to get my car title switched over and new tags. I knew it was going to take at least that much time because dealing with government agencies has always been a long drawn out process. You would think that with the amount of taxes we pay, things could be engineered to be a bit more concise. But I had to go around town from one place to another to find out what kind of paper work I would need and where I should go to get them. I finally got it all done at about three o'clock Friday afternoon. Just in time for the weekend I guess.

The weather has cooled down well these past few days. We had good rain for three days and then the skies opened and the heat was gone... for now. It's been nice to ride my motorcycle in the mornings. I had to put my jacket lining in this morning because it was so cool outside. The thing you have to remember when you ride your bike is that temperatures that feel pleasantly cool on your skin while you stand still, can bite through your cotton shirt at fifty miles per hour. I learned this the hard way. I also learned that gloves are not just fun optional wear when it's cooler outside. I just drove home from Linzy's on the other side of town and my hands are working on thawing out. Another note to self. Don't accelerate the bike when making sharper turns. When you're pitched at an angle like that, the bike less traction on the far sides of the tires and acceleration will throw the back tire out from under you if you're not careful. Hehe, I had a little run-in with that today too. I just turned the bars and threw a bit more acceleration into it and fishtailed out of what could have been a spill. I'm learning, that's for sure. The good thing is that I'm rarely in high traffic areas, so these little slip ups aren't as threatening as they could be.

My hair is getting really long. I'm not sure how long I'm going to wait before I cut it, but it's getting to be the longest I've ever had it.

Tomorrow I rise early because I'm running front of house sound at church. I'm kinda wishing I could sleep in now, but I will want to do it once I'm there. Volunteer work isn't always filled with passion and excitement, just most of the time. Either way, I'm probably going to be taking a nap tomorrow. Peace and love.

How to Pick Sides

People are so fickle, and by people, I of course include myself. We never know what we really want, do we? I don't know, I was just watching Letters from Iwo Jima and I realized that we base our loyalty on the side we relate to the most, which tends to fluctuate quite often. I'm not saying that firm people don't exist, I'm just saying that we make fun of them if we find out who they are. They are the narrow minded ones, while we tend to bounce around from place to place, never really landing on anything solid. I just got to thinkin because the movie is from the Japanese perspective on the battle of Iwo Jima. I didn't finish it due to it getting a little late for me to still be up, but what I realized is that I've seen movies on that battle and ones like it before. I've always seen the American perspective, and they had my remorse. But in this movie, I found my remorse handed to the Japanese.

So I'm displaying a class act example of loyalty based upon emotion, I am the fair weather fan. It's definitely a product of the post modern idea, just weighing the emotions of one side, usually the lesser thought of. I can see benefits of that kind of thinking, but when we fail to compare both sides, and when we fail to include logic with our emotions, I feel that it is a disservice, and any decision yielded from that train of thought is potentially just as destructive as its counterpart.

I also found myself in envy of other languages. Japanese, in particular, seems to be a language that by cultural standards has not lost the power behind the words spoken. Coming from a poetic history, it seems, at least to an outsider, that Japanese words are chosen very carefully. I say this because whenever I watch anything Japanese, the conversations seem to be so immense. I remember while being in Ghana, Godwin was showing his thanks to us and he said that there were no words in English that could frame exactly what he wanted to express, so he said it in one of the several Ghanaian languages. Now I think English can be a beautiful language if spoken with precision, but I find no tolerance of that in the microwave internet society we Americans call home. As a result of this, I find that most businesses will admit that their biggest problem is communication. We're losing the ability to communicate to each other clearly.

Anyways, I joined the YMCA today and I swam a 500. It wore me out pretty good and then I sat in the steam room. I wanted to throw up when I was done, but I withheld. Now I'm good and worn out. I think I'll sleep deep tonight.

Linzy and I are doing great! She's a great girl and we have a lot going for us. The best thing is that we can talk to each other about pretty much anything (again, communication) and I'm really glad about that. We've seen each other pretty much every day since she got back last Sunday night, but we've really wanted to. She says that this is the honeymoon phase, and I know she's right. It's going to take more work soon, but we both know it and it doesn't intimidate us at all. So for those of you who haven't met her, it looks like she'll be coming back to High Point with me over Thanksgiving, so you'll all get your chance.

I'm going to bed now. Hope I'm not too sore in the morning. Peace and love.

Divine Guilt

I don't know how I feel right now... Confused? Scared? Excited? I don't know. Stuff is goin on that's moving me in all different directions emotionally, physically, spiritually. It's really freaking me out. I think I realize how much of life I have taken for granted. Struggles have brought me into the understanding that life is serious and we do have a great many decisions that we can make either wisely or poorly and we will have to live with those decisions after they have been made. The kind of decisions I make now determine the kind of person I will become. It's not all just fun and games. Will I become the kind of person I desire to be? Honorable, wise, kind, loving, strong, decisive, a good listener, charitable... It's so hard to see that far. I now know the heart of Paul when he wrote (I think it was in Romans) that he knows what he should do, but he just can't seem to do it. He always fails.

And there is an incredibly strong duality within my being as of this moment. It has happened several times before where I will be driving along comfortably and then I am hit with something very real, very revealing, and very much a determinant as to where I go in life. My soul and my spirit are in the middle of a huge battle and it's beginning to spill over to my body. God has still maintained His presence and control through all of this, though I still can't quite get the thought out of my head. "How much will He allow me to screw this up?"

As far as lovers are concerned, I am a neglecting lover of the Lord. Sometimes it's hard for me to consider myself a Christian because of what the word means. "Christ-like"? Do I really think that I am "Christ-like"? I know Jesus and I know myself, and it's so hard to see the similarities most of the time. I just fail so much. I know I hurt Him, but yet He still fights for me. That's the divine aspect of it all. If I loved a woman like I loved Him, she would undoubtedly leave me in a very short period of time.

There are two types of guilt. There is the kind of guilt you feel out of the fear of knowing you have done wrong, and that is a guilt that I have no room for in my life. It causes fear to grow, it dashes your confidence, and it rapes you of your knowledge of love. This is the most common form of guilt because it is most commonly taught and distributed by man. But unknown to me until recently in my life, there is a second kind of guilt. It is the kind of guilt that you receive when you have violated the bonds of love. It does not attack the heart in the same manner as fear-driven guilt. It nudges the heart and whispers softly. It does not make you want to run. It makes you want to swallow your pride and come back. It is the tight hug after a fight in which you knew you were wrong but you persisted in fighting anyways. This is divine guilt, messiah, God is with us.

Peace and love.

Don't Be a Bitchy Brooder

Just got done with work for the day. I'm pretty tired and there was a lot to be done. It's good learning new things though. I've been able to pick up more and more each day. Sometimes I even feel a little overwhelmed, but I'll survive. I can't wait for the day where I become completely self sufficient at that job. We'll see how soon that happens.

It's raining right now off and on. I'm so glad. We really needed it here. All of the grass is dead and brown and it's just so dusty and dry.

I was in a bad mood this morning when I woke up. I have a lot on my mind right now and I'm not really getting quite as much sleep as I should be, but most of the crap is just stuff that I'm going to have to deal with internally.

When it comes down to it, I'm pretty selfish. It's one of my traits that I notice more and more each day and I really hate it. I'll do stupid stuff on my own to prove something to myself while simultaneously completely forgetting that there are other people around me that care about me and that depend on my wellbeing. I also get really bitchy sometimes, only I don't bring the issue to the people I feel bitchy about nor do I let it show that I'm feeling bitchy until it's way beyond my control. Instead of dealing with it properly, I sit and brood and my emotions and logic go to war.

So yeah, I could probably stand to address that issue. Anyways, I'm going to get out of these work cloths and take it easy tonight. Peace and love.

The First

And it starts. This is the new journal I shall keep as a testament to my struggles and celebrations until I should stumble upon some new and clear cut chapter of life. The College Years were great and I lost, gained, and learned a great deal, but I'm ready for this. I'm ready to face what it is life has to offer.

It's still so dry outside. There have been so many fires around town, big fires. I pray for rain, sure. I want it to rain real bad, but I know there are people out there who want it to rain even more than I do.

I just finished sewing some of my Halloween costume tonight. I'm going to be Link from the Nintendo series. It's hard to sew and I lack the patience, but I'll get there. I do have the determination.

Work is going well, but sometimes I do wonder if this is where I need to be. I long for distant places, but I stay seated in my given situation. I'll go where I need to go when those doors are opened. What I do know is that this company will take care of me, and if I were to get married, they would take care of my family too. That is comforting.

Well, I need to sleep. I'll try and elaborate more on the present some other time.

Peace and love.