June 2002 2002-06-25 - Improvements Where At work. What Ok, first I totally had that thought below on my own, very random. But the next day I was reading this book where it essentially said the same thing. That at least made me feel a bit better. This summer is flying by, like most. Last weekend was Beth's birthday party, which despite my anxiety turned out to be really cool. That and I learned all sorts of fun and interesting things which I of course will only use at the appropriate times (:. j/k! Last sunday was our Churches annual congregational voters meeting where we vote on things like the budget and whatever else needs to be voted upon. It went 500% better than last year. I think there's some improvements yet to be made, but things seems to be at least on the right track. Beyond that, I've been doing a lot of messing around on the piano and guitar, while I'm still far from where I want to be at least there's some improvement which is cool. I waited too long in between updates, 'cause I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting, but alas. When 4:11 p.m. 2002-06-14 - Loving Yourself Where Home, sittin in my bedroom. What So I've been a bit bummed lately, and annoyed at some people. I was hanging out with Michael tonight, (if you don't know, he's a close friend from High School) and we watched Oceans 11, and a Spin City episode, talked a bit, etc... He just left, and I sat down to see if I had any emails or other messages. On my way doing this I started thinking about this quote "love your neighbor as yourself", which appears many times throughout the Bible. In fact, it's there 9 times. That got me thinking, what if you don't love yourself? What if you don't even like yourself? How many people in this world are there that go through the motions every day hating their life, hating themselves? How many others sit there and think about all the mistakes they've made and what an idiot they are? Ok, I know, the point of the passage is that you should treat others as you would want to be treated. But wait, read that the other way, it is in fact an equality. Treat person X = Treat person Y where Y = me. By the rules of logic, that means Treat person Y = Treat person X where Y = me. In other words, treat yourself the same as you treat other people. Our society today does an excellent job of telling us to be kind to others, while at the same time it promotes an incredibly horrid way of dealing with self. I'm not going to go into the details, I think they're pretty clear. I don't know how many times I've heard someone described as "such a good person" when I know that person goes out every weekend and drowns themself in Alcohol. The person obviously knows how to treat others, otherwise they would not be described as a good person. They do a great job putting on a play to make others feel that they are good, but you can't fool yourself. I'm rambling now, but I think my point is made. When 11:50 p.m. 2002-06-12 - Ditching Class Where Home, sittin in my bedroom. What Went to work, did some stuff, came home at lunch after picking my mom up from KU Med West where she had some operation (she's fine), ate lunch with her, went back to work. Left work around 3 for the zoo, walked around the zoo with a couple interns, ate pizza. I ditched the IMAX movie, I was tired of being around people and suddenly in a bad mood. Instead I went to Sears, got new tires for my car. When 9:34 p.m. 2002-06-10 - The Land of Coffey & Not-so-old memories Where You guessed it, at work. What Hrm, guess I haven't updated this in a few days. Well, I'll work on what I can remember in order. Went to Coffeyville, KS all day Saturday for my Aunt & Uncle's 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was nice to see all my cousins and other family, but especially cousins since I haven't seen them in a while. My older cousins planned the whole deal, they did a good job (with help of grandma's & aunt). My only complaint would be the keg, I dunno, just doesn't mesh with me very well. Maybe someday I'll understand how people find beer to be so attractive a drink to get a keg. Yesterday, good bible class, we're talking about friends and witnessing. Church, well, I was a bit distracted. Lots of things running thru my head. Mowed the lawn after church, it started to rain but it wasn't hard enough for me to bother stopping, so I finished the yard up anyway. I'm going to get sick from cookies, I've had like 5 or 6 in the past hour. Back to the past, last night was a tad stressful, for reasons not explainable here. However I did have the opportunity to drive out to the park. I took my laptop with me and typed up all my journal notes from Mexico, it was kinda fun to revisit all those memories which were only a few weeks ago! I also ran around where our home cross country meet was held, saw a deer... yea, not all that special but rarely do I see them when I'm not in a car. He ran away from me thou, guess I must be scarry or something :). Like I said, it rained earlier, so my shoes got a bit muddy... oh well, gotta get muddy sometime. Felt good. When 1:15 p.m. 2002-06-06 - New Toys Where Yea, ok, I'm at work. Again. What YEA! So The port replicator works, and its nice. Dinner was cool, and made it to bible study on time. So HR decided they would mess up all my paperwork, and didn't process anything before yesterday. That means that I haven't been able to update my address, phone number, etc. until today. That means that the computer they sent to me ended up at another office, and is who knows where now. I should've just gone to pick it up when I got the email from the guy in the mail room. Oh well, too late on that, and I'll live. It also means the paycheck they should've sent to me didn't get sent, so had to go thru this manual check process which isn't too bad. But I went to pickup the check and it wasn't there, so I came back here and am waiting for an email to explain to me where its at. In other news, I got an email back about this computer support TA job which i think would be pretty good for me for next year except that they won't do phone interviews. I'm going to send in my resume and write up a cover letter anyway, but I have no idea what I'll do if I get past that part and they want to interview. I think I'd be great for the job based on the description, so we'll just have to see what happens. When 1:33 p.m. 2002-06-05 - I have pants Where I'm at work! Fooled ya again. What Oh, nothing much going on today. I got some pants shipped to me from OldNavy last night, 'cause they don't sell the size that fits me best in the store. It rained very nicely yesterday, very cool for a change. Had a bit of lightning and thunder too, but mostly just a rain. I ordered a port replicator (similar to a docking station) for my laptop, I guess 'cause I'm lazy, and partly 'cause I wanted another power supply for it, but they tried to ship it at 2:30 and nobody was home, so I'm going to go pick it up on my lunch break. I think I'll take a full hour for lunch, 'cause I'm going to dinner with Interns at On the Border (mmmm... mexican). Then depending on thhe time I'll go hang out with the 20 something group from church. Unless the Interns have other things planned, then I'd have to decide, and that's not an easy decision. Hopefully my life will be simple and dinner will be done and everyone will just be heading home. I'm perfecting the art of rambling I think. When 10:50 a.m. 2002-06-03 - Pianos are heavy Where Ha! I'm at work! Fooled ya. What Well I'm at work, been kinda a slow day. Ok, make that it has been a slow day. I've had time to check on all the online orders I've made, and send out some emails. My boss isn't here, and manager hasn't been around, I guess he's in meetings or something. Yesterday I had time to sit down and read many people's opinion on the appropriateness of contemporary worship, in particular with regard to what they're doing at my church. This has lead to a lot of research on my part as to what goes on during your typical worship service, analyze it a bit, figure out why its there, if it should be, etc... So far I've just come to some rather sketchy conclusions which challenge much of the lutheran teachings. We moved our piano last night, into the living room. It sounds better in there, bigger room and all. Now I can practice those contemporary songs which are misunderstood by many. For those who cling to Romans 12:2 as their verse of choice to combat contemporary songs, I encourage you to read verses 1 through 8 as well. Then you might understand that what Paul is talking about is turning your life over to God, letting Him be in control of what you do, letting Him use the talents He gave us and not letting the world take control of our lives. By offering your life to God you are worshipping him. When 2:00 p.m.