Mr. Blue Sky is living here today

One last goals blog to write for the year as I sit in an imitation snuggie before actually getting to my to do list for the rest of the day.  Here goes.

1) Work Harder - for the month, total failure and I'm okay with that.  Exam week was rather busy but since submitting grades, I haven't as much as even opened up a math book.  Once I get back to Anderson, I'll have to start writing syllabi and prepping lesson plans, but that can wait another day or two.  I haven't lifted in three weeks and I've only run a couple of times this month.  For my lifting for the semester, my weight only increased by about half a pound so I did swap out some fat for muscle.  I just started from a worse spot than I originally remembered.  My bench max increased by 20 pounds and my dead max increased by about 50 so I made some decent gains that I'd like to push forward.  Actual marathon training starts on January 11 and that doesn't seem like much fun since its gotten very cold rather quickly.  Overall, for the year, I can't say that the year has been a resounding success.  It certainly hasn't been a failure what with getting back into a lifting routine that requires me to wake at five and the Indy Mini PR was a nice accomplishment.  If we're comparing to recent years though, 2011 and 2012, a.k.a the dissertation years, were certainly much tougher and the work then was killer.

2) Play Harder - Success in the early month with the trip out to Hot Springs.  Since then, not as much.  I did get out ice skating with Lindsey earlier in the week and now have some nice injuries where my skates rubbed my legs raw.  Overall, this has been a tremendous success.  I've traveled all over the place and really lived life by getting out and just doing stuff because why not?  I've been blessed with a girlfriend who is willing and happy to get out and try new stuff and we've had a lot of fun.

3) Read More - I finally got back into a good reading month.  I've knocked out Don Winslow's Savages, Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and Cormac McCarthy's The Road this month as well as starting Jeff Vandermeer's Authority which is the follow up to Annihilation.  Savages wasn't overly impressive and I have no idea why they turned it into a movie.  The Lovely Bones had a good premise but some of the stuff at the end just lost it for me.  I thought The Road was a fantastic book, which caught me by surprise since I strongly hesitated when buying it since I didn't think all that much of Blood Meridian and I disliked the movie version of No Country for Old Men, predominantly because there's no legitimate resolution.  The Road did give me a feeling of completion and I'd recommend it.  For the year, I'd put this the same as the work hard category.  I'm happy with all the stuff I've read (especially East of Eden - Thanks Luke!), but I can't say it necessarily qualifies as reading more.

4) Travel More - We've already covered Arkansas and I've spent the last two weeks up in Michigan for the Christmas break since being in academia is great.  For the year, this couldn't have been more of a success.  Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, Southern Utah, Kansas City, St. Louis, Red River Gorge in Kentucky, Mammoth Cave, Portland, Seattle, Menninga Island, Arkansas, Turkey Run State Park, Chicago, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, East Lansing.  Yeah, I'm satisfied.  Heck, my last post was basically me saying that I didn't need to set this year as the bar since I can't keep going at this rate, but I'll certainly have fun trying.

5) Drink better beer - I actually haven't drank very much this month.  I did stop by Grand Rapids Brewing last night with Brooke.  We originally planned to go to HopCat but it was packed and so we just walked down the street.  I had the John Ball Brown which is decent and the New Mission Organics which was really good.  We were even cool enough that our bartender came over and hung out with us to kill the hour or so until she went to pick up her friend.  Overall, I've wasted less time with crappy beer this year and my tastes have improved.  I've currently got a six pack of Spotted Cow ready to take home, courtesy of Sara as well as a couple Guinness Blondes thanks to Aunt Deb.  I'm strongly considering picking up a six pack of Lagunitas' Little Sumpthing Sumpthing because it is ridiculously good, but with the Sam Adams I still have in my fridge, I don't really see why I'd need 25 beers in my fridge when I should be trying to cut back so I can lose a little weight and get fast for the marathon.


Overall, this year has really been a blessing.  I'm starting to feel more at home in Indiana and am seriously considering actually settling here for good.  I had a relationship or three and am extremely excited to see where things go with Lindsey and that maybe, hopefully, finally, this is the one that works out.  There were some disappointments and indiscretions throughout the year, but all told, I truly believe that I became a better person this year and did a good job of staying true to who I want to be.  Thanks to all of you for helping to be a part of that and encouraging me when I needed it.

The fine life is a beautiful thing

Going into the month, I knew December would be expensive, what with Christmas presents, one last big payment to finish off my student loans, car/rental insurance and my trip to Arkansas.  Its gotten even more so over the last few days, starting first with paying off the broken headlight that happened on that trip.  Yesterday, things got potentially quite worse.  At dinner, after my first few bites, I had an issue where I could no longer swallow anything.  This has happened a couple of times before and usually I'm just able to eventually take in enough water to choke it down or burp an airhole clear.  I've had it once before where it was bad and I couldn't even keep any water down but it eventually cleared up after not trying to ingest anything for several hours.  Yesterday was of this bad kind.  After an hour of continually coughing up water and vomiting up saliva, Mom and I headed into Urgent Care.  We waited in Urgent Care for an hour before I even got into triage but they sent me back right away after that where the doctor there confirmed that I had an esophageal obstruction from whence they sent me on to the ER.  Mom drove me to the ER where I haven't been in quite a while and there I got to experience a whole range of fun activities.  After consulting with a doctor, they sent me in for a chest x-ray which didn't show a whole lot; namely, they couldn't particularly see any blockage.  I was still puking up all my spit and wasn't even trying to keep water down so no one was going to accuse me of faking at least.  The next plan after that was to hook me up with a bunch of drugs to relax both me and my esophagus in the hopes that would help pass the roast that we believe was stuck at the bottom of my throat.  They gave me some anti-nausea medication in anticipation of giving me glucagon to help relax my lower esophagus.  At that time though, word came down from endoscopy to send me down there so I could get scoped instead.  I was then wheeled through the bowels of the hospital where I apologized to the nurses for making them coming in on a weekend while they hooked me up to a bunch of cords and tubes.  They knocked me out and from what I've been told, gave me an EGD (esophagogastroduodenoscopy) which consists of sending a scope down my esophagus to see the blockage and clear it out and then sent down a tube with a balloon which was then filled to dilate my esophagus.  They also took a biopsy which I fully expect to come back and say I have GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) which basically means that stomach acid occasionally comes back into my esophagus and irritates it. EDIT: The biopsy isn't for GERD, which I likely have anyway through genetics.  Talking with Mom and Dad, its actually for something that has a name roughly a billion letters long that my parents don't remember and I never heard since this in the half hour or so from which I remember literally nothing. END EDIT.  All of this is fun stuff that I'll get to pay for since I have a high deductible health insurance plan and had to use it in the last week of the year before it rolls over on January 1.  At least I could have had this happen next week and gotten some significantly reduced elective surgery or something.

Anyway, maybe this is a sign I should stop trying to immediately catch up on all the traveling I may have missed out on and just relax and be happy.  I am hoping to do some house shopping this summer and hopefully settle down soon.  This certainly depends on what happens in my relationship with Lindsey.  One of my first exes once told me that some of the best advice she had ever gotten on marriage was "Don't marry someone you can live with; marry someone you can't live without".  This probably works for late teens/early 20s, but if its truly the case, I'm screwed because there's no one I can't live without.  I can't imagine how much it would suck to lose some of those close with me, but I've gone through enough now to know that I'd get past it and through it and God will carry me through, no matter how weak I am.  Instead of finding I can't live without, I'll propose marriage when I can't imagine any good reason not to be with someone forever.  I'm not quite there yet, but its heading that way.

Let's go get lost anywhere in the USA

1477.8 miles, 24 hours, 42 minutes and 13 seconds plus roughly $150 for gas and another $120 to replace a broken headlight cover.  This last Thursday, I took off around 10 a.m. in the morning to go make some memories in Arkansas because why not? My previous list of Arkansas memories consisted of changing seats on a Southwest flight that had a layover in Little Rock and I didn't even get out of the plane.  As I said, I left around 10, getting into Harrison at around 6.  Just before then, while on the freeway in the complete dark of 5:30, I was startled when some white object either fell off the car in front of me or was thrown by its driver and collided with what I originally thought was my hood.  Later, I was relived to see that I didn't have a huge dent in my hood only to even later realize that the object had missed my hood and taken out half of my headlight cover instead.  Friday morning, after a fitful night's rest, I took off at around 6 and drove intermittently through fog and clouds first to Hawksbill Crag for one of the iconic Arkansas hikes, if Arkansas is allowed to have iconic hikes, then through more fog for two hours up to Signal Hill, the highpoint of Arkansas (a 0.4 mile hike to a high point with no view) and then for another hour and a half up to Petit Jean State Park and the Seven Hollows Trail, which was a fantastic hike that I had to rush through because it was mid-December and I didn't want to be out past four because it would be getting dark.  I knocked out the best known trail in Arkansas, its high point, and a trail that Backpacker named to its 100 best dayhikes and over the course of the entire day, I ran into one other person out on the trails all day and I think she was just running the Seven Hollows Trail.  Technically, since I encountered her in the parking lot, I didn't see another person on the trails all day, but heck, if I can get two great hikes in and have a full day of glorious nature and solitude, that's a darn good day.  At the end of the day, I still had another hour and a half drive down to Hot Springs.  Saturday morning, I checked another National Park off my list as I explored Hot Springs National Park, one of the oldest and definitely the smallest national park.  Sunday morning, I drove.  Sunday afternoon, I drove.  Finally, at 6, after 10 hours of being in the car, I made it back home to Anderson.  My longest walk that day out of the car was from the gas station parking lot in to use the bathroom.  It was a long, boring day, but it meant I got to spend another weekend out doing what I love.  I don't know when I became a road trip aficionado (possibly the same time I gave up using paragraphs in blog entries), but I've had four different trips of over 1000 miles since the start of May.  There was the 1400 miles exploring Utah in May, 1200 miles out to Kansas City and St. Louis for a long weekend in June, 1100 miles down to bourbon country and Red River Gorge in Kentucky in July and these 1400 miles.  Add in the 500+ mile trips to Michigan and Chicago and Chicago/Wisconsin and Mammoth Cave and I've spent entirely too much time in my car, if not for the fact that its allowing me to start exploring this beautiful creation.  I've already got three potential road trips planned for next year.  I want to go explore some of the California national parks with Luke, northern Michigan with Lindsey (only 800 miles) and potentially a massive Northeast hiking/camping trip with Lindsey that I should think about scaling back.  This is great fun and this is why I'm so glad I chose to pursue the career I have - namely, so I can pursue these other interests of mine that make me so incredibly happy.

That'd be one fine day

Friday was the last regular school day with exams coming up this week.  All I have left for this semester is grading.  I went ahead and booked my trip to Arkansas because I just want to get out of the Midwest real quick and because the only time I've been there before, I changed seats on the plane but never even made it into the airport so, hahaha, that doesn't even merit consideration for being there.  I'm going to try and knock out hikes to Hawksbill Crag, Signal Hill and Seven Hollows Canyon (all in different parks) on the same day and then check out Hot Springs National Park in the following day or two.  My usual end of the semester celebration with a Five Guys burger got bumped up to tonight since I didn't really want to stop for one for lunch in the middle of St. Louis and have to drive another four hours with that bloated feeling just taking over my gut since I can't not eat way too much every time I go to Five Guys.

Friday I also made my last student loan payment.  Instead of paying the minimum of $80/month for the next several years, I just went ahead and knocked out the last $5000 over the past six months.  It took me 10.5 years to pay back my loans to Trinity, but nearly eight of those years was in deferment thanks to grad school, so all in all, it wasn't actually that bad.  It'll be nice to be able to keep the extra cash come January but it may be even nicer just to realize I'm debt free except for the month's bills on the credit cards.  Ideally, that would all change come the end of summer when I find a nice house if I decide I really want to settle down here in Indiana (I'm close, but the lack of mountains....) and then I can start all over again with mortgage payments.  That'd suck, but it sure beats rent payments since I actually get something of permanent value out of it.

The world has turned and left me here

A quick update on November will look very similar to October because that's what happens when you get in the routine of school.  We did have the Math Christmas party last night where I learned that some of my students are too scared of me to ask questions.  I don't actively try to achieve this but I really don't mind this too much.  I don't think I'm all that intimidating but I could be wrong.

1) Work harder.  The status quo remains.  I did run 40 miles in November though so at least some progress is being made.  I'll find out a lot more next week as max day is this coming Monday.  I'd love to combine for 500 in the bench and dead but I doubt it'll happen since I tried doing deadlift reps at 295 yesterday and my from went to pot on the second rep.

2) Play harder.  Nope.  Just the usual.

3) Travel more.  Nope.

4) Read more.  I read Jack London's Call of the Wild.  I could have sworn I read something in between Gone Girl and Call of the Wild but a quick perusal of my shelves didn't turn anything up so I guess I read a grand total of 85 pages in November.  That counts as failure.  I will make amends for this over Christmas break.

5) Drink better beer.  It just seems sad when this is the category I have the best success in for a month.  I went back to Michigan for Thanksgiving and had the misfortune of going to a grocery store so I could see all the great beers Indiana doesn't have.  I picked up a six pack of Humalupalicious to share with Lindsey's family.  I checked out Brewery Vivant with Brooke and sampled several of their offerings and brought home a four pack of Big Red Coq and you can make any jokes you want about that.  I also went back to the old standby of Boulevard's 80 Acre because not every beer has to be from Michigan.

I just wanna have something to do

A little follow up to last night's post before anyone (my mom) starts worrying about me.  Yes, it has been a tough week but I'll get through because I've got a God watching over me that always takes care of me.  Its been a tough week since I have a high standard of the type of man I want to be and lately there's been a large gap between that standard and who I actually am.  This week, that gap was simply because I didn't put the effort in and I've been drained/exhausted and am just existing to get to the break and catch my breath and get back it.

After a period like that where I spend significantly too much time on my couch, I start to worry that I'm a boring person, especially after I skipped a party last night so I could go to a movie by myself (Dumb and Dumber To - I'm not ashamed, but I probably should be).  Then I remember all the highlights of my summer including 1) A pretty awesome week of hiking out in Utah with my best friend which included the iconic Angel's Landing hike and the hike up to Observation Point which looks down on Angel's Landing and laughs.  There were also those few moments of panic as we nearly got lost in Canyonlands, 2) exploring underneath the Earth as I got to hike through parts of Mammoth Cave and have my interest in triathlons rekindled by a gay Jewish firefighter from Birmingham named Dakota, 3) an incredibly emotional week where I buried my grandfather and was a bridesman for my sister's wedding, all in the span of three days, 4) catching up with both high school friends and grad school friends as I made my way back to my hometown for the first time in 10 years, 5) having one girl have to tell another girl to stop jumping on my bed without pants on because that isn't nice, 6) nearly being caught on an open rock face during the middle of a thunderstorm that was actually accompanied by a tornado warning and 7) driving out to Kansas City to catch a baseball game with Lisa so we could keep a tradition alive which also included getting barbecue at a place Anthony Bourdain listed on his list of 12 places where you need to eat, driving to the high point in Missouri where I attempted hiking only to actually be caught in a downpour but also getting an email from my uncle which introduced me to the awesome girl I've been dating for the past several months.  That weekend also included a quick stop to go up the St. Louis Arch for the first time in many years and was also when I learned my grandfather died.  So yeah, I'm not really worried about the boring thing.

Not very pretty but we sure know how to run things

Say a prayer for me tonight.  Yes, I know how to run things but it doesn't mean I'm actually doing it.  Its just been a rough week and I could use a little bit of a reset and this upcoming Thanksgiving break and the inevitable Christmas break will be much needed except that I can feel the standard end of semester massive cold coming on.  I just need to get back to basics on doing the things that I need to do to make myself happy.

Have I got a long way to run

Thursday night was the first snow of this winter and it was significantly too early.  Thursday morning was my first run in freezing weather.  Predictably, I was cold and slow and with a few dogs being out and about, it was fairly miserable, especially in the first mile and a half before my hands went dumb.  It may have also been the best thing for me.  Allow me to explain.  Going back to college, but more pronounced in grad school, I had noticed that I would regularly become depressed for a week or two each year, frequently during the beginning of winter.  It happened enough that I considered getting checked for SAD but since it wasn't an always thing and only lasted for a week, I never did.  I really appreciate being outside though and having the opportunity to go out and just do stuff, so when it turns cold and dreary and miserable, I'm no longer motivated to do that.  I had a roommate in grad school who could spend three or four days in the apartment without leaving for anything.  More power to him but that sounds horrendous to me.  Once every couple of months, if its bitterly cold or just pouring down rain, I'll stay inside all day.  By the time it gets to be around dinner, I start to go stir crazy, more because I feel like I don't have the option of getting out.  Straight up, I need to get out and just be active.

Things started to change in 2008 when Julie ran her first 5k.  I am only a runner because Julie is a runner.  In 2009, I ran the 10k in the River Bank Run with her and I had to train for it throughout the winter because while I considered myself an athlete, I wasn't a runner.  Every year since then, I have had a race of at least 15 miles for each spring that I had to train throughout the winter for.  It forces me to get outside and to exercise since I can't not train and treadmills and I don't have a good relationship.  To recap though, 2009 was the RBR 10k, 2010 was the RBR 25k, 2011 was the Lakefront Ultra 50k when I really became a distance runner, 2012 was the RBR 25k (again), 2013 was the Lakefront Ultra 50k (again), this past year was the Indy Mini (Half-marathon), and next May will be the Flying Pig Marathon out in Cincinnati.  I don't know if this has been my saving grace from struggling through the winter even more, but it certainly hasn't hurt.  Just to let you know, I went through an 8 miler this morning where it was even colder, yet it was still beautiful.

I'm gonna relax like everybody should

One of the best things about growing up is learning who you are and becoming comfortable with that.  I can say without hesitation now that I am an introvert.  In high school/college, I always had these ideas that what the cool kids liked best was going out to these big parties where you have the opportunity to meet all of these new people.  I wasn't cool enough to get invited to anything like that anyway, but that was never something I enjoyed.  I hate small talk.  I am bad at it and just straight up don't enjoy it.  I would love to have a meaningful conversation to you but mindless banter straight up drains me.  Do I want to go to a large party where I don't know anyone?  Absolutely not; I'd rather stay in and do nothing.  Do I want to go to a large party where I know practically no one but I'm going with my girlfriend who is sensitive to this and sticks by me because she knows these types of things about me?  Sure, why not? This gives me the chance to get to know a few of the people she knows and likes.  Do I want to go to a small party with Lindsey and a few of these friends she has introduced me to? Definitely.  It is a little less fun though when the majority of those people are cheering for Ohio State and MSU craps the bed and now I'm getting trash talked by the host who is half my size.  I'm in an introvert but I still need to spend some time with other people.  I just want to do it a few people at a time and on my own terms.

What you want me to say?

A quick update on October.  There have been a lot of other possible posts brewing, but nothing substantial as of yet that I feel the need to get out.

1) Work harder - Same story as before.  I've been in the gym every MWF morning no later than 6:30 so I'm looking a little bigger, but running has been terrible.  I put in less than 20 miles for all of October and this needs to get better and fast which will be an issue as it gets cold.  Work for AU has been fine and its gotten busy but not with anything out of the normal.

2) Play harder - In any of the usual ways, no.  In my newfangled socialite ways, sure.  This is what happens when you date an extrovert; you go to parties and its fun but its totally draining.  I did get out to Turkey Run with Lindsey and a few others though.

3) Travel more - Outside of that trip to Turkey Run, all I had was a quick trip up to Chicago to present a math talk at Trinity.  November will bring the trip home for Thanksgiving, but very likely nothing more.

4) Read more - I finished off Robert Ressler's Whoever Fights Monsters, Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.  They were definitely some interesting reads with some interesting characters.

5) Drink better beer - Finally, a goal I succeeded in for the month.  I finally ended that case of Red Rye IPA as well as going through a few Union Jack IPAs from Firestone Walker.  The much more interesting day though was the game day I had with Lindsey and her friends Tim and Zach who are both beer nerds.  I can't recall half of the stuff we drank (all singles), but the most enjoyable one for me was Funky Gold Mosaic.

I don't want to let you go

Since everyone's been so patient with me on this blog, let me give you something honest and raw today.  All lyrics are from Brand New's Sink.

I don't want to let you go/But it hurts my hands to hold the rope/I won't be such an easy mark/You're no better than they say

Jump back to late April - things were good for me.  I had had a good semester and the school year was winding down.  Plans were in place to spend a couple days with Lisa in Vegas and then a week hiking Utah with Luke.  Things had cooled a little between Tori and me but I still knew I was going to marry her.  I was really quite happy.  By the start of May though, Tori had decided differently and we were no longer together.  I was confused about relationships and how things went wrong and if things would ever be right for me.  Thankfully, that time in Utah with Luke gave me someone to vent to and just to discuss the entirety of the situation.  Around the start of June, I got back into online dating because I wanted to get back to where I thought I was and I was distinctly hoping this would help me get over Tori.

The first girl I had a date with after this was Lauren.  When I saw her profile, I thought there was great potential (she was a former college athlete and active in her church).  I do distinctly remember thinking "This has to be helpful because if it doesn't work with someone like this, maybe online dating won't give me anything".  Our first date went well and we ended up talking for a couple of hours and set up a second date a week later.  That date went fine, but there just wasn't the excitement there.  I hate to say it, but I was comparing her to Tori and Lauren couldn't match the excitement I had felt in that relationship.  At this point, I was still holding on to hope that Tori and I could be friends.  A part of me at that point might have even been hoping that we could be friends and she would come to her senses and take me back and we could have the life we had talked about before.

If you call, then I'm coming to get you/You want to sink, so I'm going to let you/...Now I'm falling asleep to forget you

Tori wasn't having any of it.  I had made my play at being friends and she just ignored it, but that didn't stop me from hoping.  In late June, I was out hiking ("hiking") Missouri when I saw I had an email from Uncle Jay.  I had assumed it was just an update on his bike ride for charity, but when I looked at it later, it was an email introducing me to this girl Lindsey who had been with their group and who also happened to live in Indy.  I didn't think too much of it, but when I got back into town, I sent her an email because, why not? We emailed back and forth a little and eventually set up a lunch date at a Thai restaurant.  Things went okay on that first date, though we did only make it about 10 minutes before the first awkward silence popped up.  I was intrigued, but it would have been easy to find reasons I was still a better match with Tori (she has a science career, a kick-ass dog, makes a buttload of money (money certainly isn't everything, but after 30 years of scraping by, to first go to financial stability and then financial freedom held a great appeal), etc.), but I didn't want this to be something that held me back from something that could potentially be good.  We set up a second date that ended up being bowling and dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  Things changed during that date.  We laughed easily and found quite a few things that we had in common.  It was good. I smiled. A lot.  Unfortunately, we had to wait quite a while for a third date since Lindsey had a trip out East and then I had a trip out West before we could get together again.  After that, things have progressively gotten better as we've gotten to know each other more deeply.  Thoughts of other women have faded as I realize that Lindsey is better than any of my recent relationships.  We just have done so many more things in terms of dates.  There isn't stagnation.  She's much more willing to meet me halfway on the things where I'm weird.  She's genuine and caring and probably too nice for me.  She has good goals and priorities and I look forward to getting to know her better everyday.  I would have to try really, really hard to be around her and not smile.  Once again I'm happy.

Drowned with applause

Wow. Over three weeks since I've last posted.  This is what happens when you get into the part of the school year where you just fall into the routine and find a way to get through.  I could blame Lindsey because honestly, she's rather distracting, but that just wouldn't be true.  So if nothing else, here's the recap of goals for September.

Work Harder:  Its just been normal school stuff so not much to comment on there.  Physically, I've done a good job of being in the gym three times a week and that's still going strong, so hooray for that.  Running has been bad, especially when my colleague who is an awesome runner tweets about his 90 mile weeks.  I hate him a little bit because he's better than me at most everything.

Play Harder:  This is where Lindsey's distraction comes in.  We've been on several dates including an Iowa game, a corn maze, a picnic at the reservoir, etc.

Travel More:  Outside of going out to Purdue, I didn't make it anywhere.  School is in session, what did you expect?

Read More: I obviously finished The Long Walk which actually seemed somewhat feasible until they talked about yetis.  I also made my way through Laurie Halse Andersen's Speak and Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince.

Drink Better Beer:  I'm still working my way through this case of Sierra Nevada Red IPA as I've been drinking a lot more wine than beer.  Next up is Firestone Walker's IPA.

Sorry its a short entry but hey, at least its something.

I'm not really that fat

First, yes, I know a song that has they lyric "I'm not really that fat" in it.  Its from NOFX's Theme From a NOFX Album.  I'd prefer if you wouldn't google the rest of the lyrics.  I know no one wants to read a post where I basically call myself fat again (possible exception: Julie.  She'll like calling me a fatty.) but that's what you're getting.  For the entire month of September, my scale has told me I've weighed at least 183 pounds every morning.  Adjusting for the fact that my scale is light and I've probably been greater than 186 for the entire month and most likely have been pushing 190.  Seeing as how I'd like to be at around 175, you can see where this is a problem.  I've gotten back into lifting and have been hitting the gym three times a week at 6:30 in the morning to start packing on some muscle.  I'm still trying to run a couple of times a week or so too, but so far, that's very much been hit and miss.  Going to the gym has been nice and while muscle may be made there, unfortunately, it gets defined in the kitchen.  I have struggled there.  In fact, I may have made apple pie cupcakes earlier today whose base is a cinnamon roll.  They're not fantastic, but certainly not bad.  I've already had four.  Now you know why I'm fat.  There's a reason my last roommate called me the skinniest fat guy he knew.

I do see this as a problem though since I don't particularly like how I look in pictures right now so I'll need to find a way to drop the weight again.  Actually, the weight's not the problem.  I've got a gut that shows up and my chest isn't as tight as I'd like it to be so if I just change that, I'll be fine.  To get there, I'm strongly considering taking a dietbet and putting my money where my mouth shouldn't be and now making it actually hurt if I don't back it up.  The hardest part of this will be asking Lindsey to stop baking because she's really, really good at it and I don't want to discourage this in any way.  At least I'll die fat and happy.

I am too weak to be your cure

This is a post I've imagined writing for a long time, but I never thought I actually would.  I'm currently reading Speak, a young adult novel by Laurie Anderson about a girl entering high school who was raped the previous summer and essentially loses her voice because she can't talk about it.  So yeah, this post is about rape culture.  A few of my friends have posted things on facebook about rape culture and I always had some negative reaction to it.  I always felt this need to defend myself - to let people know that this is never something I would do.  Obviously, its not.  I'm a 32 year old virgin.  Several people have let it be known that they'd be willing to sleep with me and I haven't taken them up on it so why would I ever feel the need to take it from someone that's not willing?  Why do I bring this up?  Because rape culture is too prevalent in our society and its simply not fucking okay.  Roughly half of the women I've dated have been survivors of some sort of sexual assault, ranging from verbal assault to straight out rape.  If you're curious to who has and who hasn't, I'm not going to tell you that because that's not my story to tell.  Just know this: I know way too many people (women and men) who have been subjected to this and I feel absolutely awful for anyone who has suffered through this.

The first time I dealt with it was when I was driving back home with her in my car and Sublime's Date Rape came on the radio.  Its a song about a man who commits date rape but gets his comeuppance and is sent to jail and gets raped himself.  Halfway through the song she broke down and started crying.  I had no idea anything had happened and had no idea how to react.  I still wouldn't know what to say.  What can you possibly say to anyone who has suffered through such ugliness?  A few years later, I remember a girlfriend telling me that she had been raped and just discussing the basic details of it.  I couldn't think of anything to say so I just hugged her because I had no idea what else to do and my heart broke for her.  It had been several years but she could still let me know when it was the same day that it had happened.  The first emotional response I had was anger but there was nothing I could do with it.  I'm still not sure what I can do other than be an advocate for anyone who's been strong enough to fight through this.

Honestly, I'm not sure how to end this post.  There has to be something more out there that can be done for those who have suffered at the hands of the scum of the earth.  I want to do more.  

Break the moment into something more than gold

Everything in life is basically falling into the categories of either school or Lindsey and that's pretty sweet, but it doesn't give me a lot of stuff about which to blog.  On a side note, making sure you don't end a sentence with a preposition just makes it sound like you had to reword the sentence simply so you wouldn't end with a preposition.  I'm coming back to an old favorite post because I've spent a decent amount of time daydreaming about all the places that I want to travel to.  I'm breaking out the old Top ten places I've visited/Top ten places to go.  Trust me, the list of places to go is significantly longer than this.  It wasn't tremendously difficult to narrow it down to the top ten though.  That said, I will remember some places I missed and there will be near-constant addendums to this list.  Before I change it again,

Top Ten Places I've Visited:

1) New York - If there weren't a money issue, I would LOVE to live in New York for a few years.

2) Sydney - Still my gold standard for international travel.  Ignore the naysayers pointing out my lack of passport stamps.

3) The Pacific Northwest - I couldn't find a way to separate Portland and Seattle.  This should be higher but I can't find a way to bump it up.

4) Denver - I would move to Denver in a heartbeat and be immensely happy.

5) Utah - So incredibly beautiful and a hiker's dream.

6) Chicago - This may be a little high but it scored very well with sentimentality points.

7) Washington DC - If you come back from DC without being wowed, its your own fault.

8) Grand Rapids - This may very well take over Chicago's spot in the next few years.  There's a lot of good going on up there.

9) Cairns (Australia) - Oceans and mountains.  Yes.

10) The Great Smoky Mountains - This would be higher if I would've spent more time in a city better than Gatlinburg.

Las Vegas fell way off the list just because I don't have the same wonder attached to it that I used to.  I'm surprised San Diego fell off as well, but its just been too long since I've been there and its too expensive to go back.  It's just off the list, as is Boston.  L.A. would be on the list if it wasn't so spread out.  The Grand Canyon will rightfully claim a spot as soon as I hike it instead of just having looked at it.  Mammoth Cave would have made the list if they'd let me explore it solo.

Top Ten Places to Visit:

1) Belize - Central America is high on the To Visit list and Belize wins out because they predominantly speak English.

2) Acadia National Park - This will be the highlight of a huge hiking trip in the Northeast.

3) Italy - Like Acadia, this was a trip that was briefly planned in the past.

4) South Africa - If only the flights weren't so expensive....

5) Hawaii - Everyone I want to convince to go there has already been.  I'm jealous of all of you.

6) Costa Rica - I need to learn Spanish.

7) Greece - Most likely to be done on that same trip where I tour Italy.

8) The top of Half-Dome - A comparison between this and Zion National Park would be amazing.  This is obviously dependent on winning the hiking permit lottery.

9) Argentina - This is the mystery spot as I'm not sure what I'd expect from traveling there, but it holds a certain allure.

10) Tie - Mt. Kiliminjaro/Machu Picchu - If you need an explanation, we aren't friends.

Others that were cut from the list that were close were New Zealand, everywhere in Australia I haven't yet been, Germany and New Orleans.

Hey Joe, where you gonna run to now?

All right, its my monthly update on my goals for the year, just encompassing both July and August this time.

1) Work harder. I wish.  I've put on 15 pounds since the start of June and I don't like it.  I did get some work done on looking at the stability regions of SDC algorithms, just nothing useful yet, unfortunately.  At least the physical stuff I'm working on.  I've started lifting again at AU's gym just to I can throw around some actual weight.  I definitely needed the bigger weights to start doing leg lifts again because I was disappointed in the size of my legs in some of the cabin pictures.  I've also officially signed up for the Flying Pig marathon in May, so hopefully that'll kick my ass and get me running again.

2) Play harder. This has a direct link to my failures at working harder.  I hiked Multnomah Falls near Portland.  I hiked in Bellingham.  I hiked Red River gorge.  I hiked parts of Mammoth Cave.  I kayaked in Northern Indiana.  I had a voodoo doughnut.  I talked about triathlons with a gay Jewish Alabaman firefighter named Dakota.

3) Travel more - Portland, Bellingham, Seattle, Kentucky (twice), Menninga Island.  Check and check.

4) Read more.  This has gone pretty well.  I finished The Book Thief and I may have cried at the end.  Judge me all you want.  If that ending doesn't move you, you're dead inside.  I've also finished Alex Stone's Fooling Houdini, Marie Lu's Prodigy, Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro (just awful), Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, Neal Shusterman's Unwind and I'm currently working on Slavomir Rawicz's The Long Walk.

5) Drink better beer.  Very much a success.  All sorts of good stuff in Portland and Bellingham.  Lisa brought a bunch of very legit stuff out to the cabin.  I've had Sierra Nevada in my fridge for the past month.  I even had a black and blue at the Carraig with Brooke last week.  It's been delightful these past two months.

I was born without this fear

What a summer.  There were trips to Chicago, Milwaukee, East Lansing, Grand Rapids, Las Vegas, Utah, Kansas City, St. Louis, Portland, Bellingham and twice to Kentucky.  I put a ton of miles on my car and nearly another 1500 on rentals.  I would love to have all of my summers look like this from now on if I could simply afford it.  In a straight comparison with most people, I would probably qualify as underpaid, but I just like to think that I could get paid in time over the summer.  If you take my salary and multiply by 1.5 to accommodate for the fact that I only work for eight months, it makes things look a lot better.

That said, the extra money that would come with a full twelve months of work would be nice.  I see what my friends have and I know there's no way I could currently support a wife, kids and the mortgage on a $250,000 house.  I get a little anxious about my car now too as its about at the mileage where my last car crapped out.  Of all those things, I could probably afford one at the most right now.  Thankfully, Indy is quite cheap and so my house won't be nearly that expensive.  Someone could see my travels and think I've got a fear of missing out.  Its not that.  I see the things my friends have and its not that I feel like I'm missing out, but rather, I fear that I'm falling behind compared to all of them.  I feel like some of the benchmarks of the early 30s (family and home) are things I should have by now.  There is the obvious reason behind it as the vast majority of my friends didn't spend seven years in grad school making just enough to survive.  I know I just need to be patient as these things will come.  I should revel in the fact that I am doing exactly what I want to do and I am exploiting the fact that I essentially have summers off if I so desire.  I get it, I really do.  Its just hard for me to be patient, especially now that I have this massive list of places I want to visit that gets longer by the day.

I know what I've done but tell me what have I missed

There's roughly six hours of summer left so it's time to discuss the summer goals.

1) Hike Utah's Mighty Five. Done. Awesome.  I would do it again in a second.

2) Explore Kentucky.  I did.  Red River Gorge and three distilleries with Roger.  Several passages in Mammoth Cave with a bunch of people I wish weren't there.  It was still fun.

3) Drink homemade beer.  Success! Thanks Jon.

4) Do actual mathematical research of expanding spectral deferred correction.  Failure, but only because I didn't do it on SDC.  Instead, I worked on trying to figure out stability regions and so far that hasn't been overly successful.

5) Catch up on scripture memory.  This failed.  It went well for the first 6-8 weeks or so and then it just fell off.

6) Get involved in church sports.  I never did check out volleyball but I will eventually.  Softball was a success and we won both the regular season championship and the season ending tournament.  I'm counting this as a success since I didn't count anything from the math side.

7) Watch the original Star Wars trilogy.  Nope, still didn't do it, but I did see them on Jon's movie shelf.

8) Build a wine glass shelf.  Thanks Dad.  It still looks good.

9) Complete P90X2.  Nope, not even close.  I gave up after four weeks.  Now I'm fat. Sigh.

10) Eat no fast food within 75 miles of Anderson.  I held out for the first two months, but that's it.

5 of 10 done.  Goal-wise, it wasn't super great, but with all my traveling, it was one heck of a summer and I can't complain.  I'll have another post up in the next couple of days dealing with my travels.

You walk this world like you're a ghost

As I'm sure you've noticed, its been a little while since I've posted.  Since you're fairly astute, I'm assuming you've noticed that I didn't post a monthly update on my goals for July.  Well, my excuse is this: I've been traveling quite a bit.  My last post came from LDub's place up in Washington where I was in the midst of a Pacific Northwest trip for 8 days which concluded with a day of travel that started at 9:30 a.m. and mercifully ended at 3:30 a.m.  I then had one day off which I chose to spend on a date with Lindsey, who I am now introducing to this blog, but I've discussed her with most of you who regularly read this, with the exception of that guy from Finland that's shown up more than once, so I don't need to update you too much.  Immediately after that, I headed out to spend some quality time with Mom's side of the family on M Island.  Here are a few thoughts to update you on everything that's been happening in the meantime.

1) Its a good thing the sibling-off didn't happen this weekend because I got beat at everything.  Kelsey beat me in fishing, Rick and Sara consistently beat Audrey and me in Euchre, my only victory in Gloom came on a technicality, everyone beat me in bags, Julie beat me in Phase 10, etc.

2) I've become Fatty McLazyButt lately.  I haven't utilized my scale in a couple of weeks and I'm expecting/terrified of seeing it read 185+ tomorrow morning.  Traveling means you get to eat a lot of good food but my exercising has been pretty much nil and it shows.  I'll definitely need to start running again and get back to lifting, especially leg lifts since I still have tiny knees and my gut keeps getting bigger.  I will be signing up for next May's Flying Pig Marathon fairly soon though, so that should start giving me some motivation.  On a related note to me being fat, pulled pork nachos with blueberry salsa are delicious and you should try it.

3) Traveling has allowed me to hit up plenty of good beer for the summer, so that's a plus.  I sampled some of Jon's home brew, checked out Full Sail brewery, Chuckanut Brewery, Wander Brewing plus had Shock Top, HUB, Nicie Spicie, Arcadia Whitsun, etc. and I'm currently enjoying a Sierra Nevada.  Yes, the etc. there is the beer I had at Bob's up in Lynden that I forgot the name of.  Perhaps Luke will chime in and remind me of what it was. Edit: Luke came through.  It was Mac and Jack's African Amber.

4) I'm not actually ready for school to start as I haven't prepped for Real at all yet and I haven't updated any of my syllabi or moodle classes yet, but mentally, yeah, I'm ready for school to start.  Don't get me wrong, this summer of traveling has been awesome and I officially got the "I hate you" from my sister because of it, which is pretty much the reaction I was going for, but its taken a toll on me physically and financially and I'm ready for an 8 month break from it.  There's still a trip down to Mammoth cave next weekend where I finally get to break in my tent and a trip to Chicago for a fantasy football draft the weekend after that, but things are finally starting to slow down.

5) It'll be nice to finally get back to my own church tomorrow.  I'm officially being introduced as a member even though I officially joined back in early May.  There was another introductory service but that was when I was in Utah.  I definitely got lucky with this service since I've missed the past three weeks and will miss the next two as well.

You have always been my safe home

My most recent round of travels has brought me back to the Pacific Northwest.  I flew into Portland on Wednesday and spent a couple days out there with Jon and Rachel.  Jon had to work so I was out exploring with Rachel with their two girls in tow.  Due to this, everybody who saw us assumed we were a family and occasionally, we'd interact with strangers and whenever a question came up, I'd defer to Rachel about the girls since they're not my kids.  After a little while, it struck me that I look like a fairly aloof dad.  Portland's a good city but I'm not sure if its somewhere I would ever truly fit in.  Jon and Rachel aren't hipsters, but Portland is their kind of city.

Saturday afternoon, I hopped on the BoltBus from Portland up to Bellingham because a trip isn't complete until your butt is sore from sitting on a bus for six hours.  About 20 miles south of Bellingham, I first saw the exit for Chuckanut Drive and the nostalgia started to seep in.  The rest of the way in consisted of remembering landmarks and reviving memories.  The few days I've had here have been wonderful.  I got to see how the city has expanded into a beer city (but not Beer City, which is still GR's title), followed by a hike in the forest the next afternoon and hanging out with a couple from grad school that I hadn't seen in two+ years who had just recently moved out there.  Last night, Luke brought me around to some of the sentimental places in Lynden.  The one that hit me the most was driving by our old house.  The garden is gone, the basketball hoop is gone, the evergreens are taller and the fireplace looks like its been updated, but other than that, it looked exactly the same.  I was tempted to have Luke stop and see if I could go inside for a little bit and even more tempted just to climb up onto the roof, but discretion ruled out.  The west coast is definitely a place I could see myself coming back to, with the biggest drawback obviously being my family still being in the Midwest.  Tonight I'll be going out to Bob's for a burger and a brew with several of the guys from high school.  This trip has been good and its a shame it's been ten years since I was last here.

Summertime and the living's easy

My last scheduled hike for the summer required a little bit of fortitude.  Roger and I drove out to Red River Gorge from Lexington on Sunday morning and pulled into the Bison Way trailhead around 9:30.  Ten minutes into the hike out to the Indian Staircase, we turned around due to a lightning flash and rumbling thunder and the annoyance of the rain that came with it.  We hung out in the car for about 40 minutes until everything passed by and made our way up to the staircase which presented a fun "scramble".  We got to the top of the staircase and wandered around for a little bit before stumbling upon a really cool bluff and taking lunch underneath it.  We started to make our way back to the staircase and lo and behold, the rain started to pick up before the thunder and lightning started back up.  As we were about to descend an exposed rock face, we decided it would be best to run back to the bluff and wait out the storm there.  We later learned how much better of an idea this was as there was a tornado warning in the area.  We eventually made it back down the trail and back to the car but decided to forego the hike out to double arch due to the weather.

I have officially been bit by the hiking bug.  There was the trip out to Vegas and Utah as well as sidetrips around St. Louis after coming back from Kansas City in addition to this trip out to Kentucky.  I've still got a camping trip out to Mammoth Cave that will surely include some hiking, but nothing big.  I'm headed out to Portland/Bellingham shortly and if possible, I'd like to knock out some hiking out there.  The bigger issue though is all the hikes that I want to do.  Heather and Mary will always tempt me to come out to Denver and I'd definitely do Longs Peak now.  Just as tempting is Megan's invite to come hike Northern Utah with her.  Uncle Bob and Aunt Bev have let me know that I've got everything I could need when I come down to hike New Mexico which I've wanted to do for a couple of years now.  Add on the big trips I'd love to knock out next summer. First, another road trip with Luke, but this one ranging through the National Parks of Southern California which are King's Canyon, Sequoia, Death Valley, and Yosemite, where I'd conquer Half Dome if I could get the permit.  Secondly, I'd love to do an epic hiking trip in the Northeast including some combination of Franconia Ridge, Mt. Mansfield, Mt. Washington, Katahdin, Cadillac Mountain and Acadia's Precipice Trail.  That would also give me a chance to go visit Crystal near Boston and play around on a trapeze.  On top of all that, include the return trips I want to do, such as going back to Gatlinburg to do the Boulevard route up to Mt. Cammerer and trying out the Via Ferrata hiking in Red River Gorge.  This would all be impossible to do next summer assuming I teach in June and July again.  Heck, it might not be doable even if I had the entire summer free and significantly more funds.  I've joked about needing a sugar mama.  What I really need is a sponsor and some better camera equipment.

I can't help feeling like I'm due for a miracle

Its approaching 1 a.m. on Sunday morning and I can't shut my mind off which means I can't fall asleep.  It might have had something to do with that nap I took this afternoon as well.  Therefore, you're getting a story I've told several times before of the first time I got into this terrible habit of napping in the afternoon and not being able to fall asleep promptly at night.

As I was finishing high school, I decided I wanted to get away and start fresh for college and so I left the confines of Northwest Washington for suburban Chicago.  It took a couple weeks for me to establish friendships, but once I did, my freshman year was fantastic.  My parents, however, were so distraught at being that far away from me that they decided to move to Michigan that following summer.  At least, that's the reason I choose to believe.  Either way, once spring semester ended, I got one last week in Washington and packed up and headed out to Michigan and it flat out sucked.  It was pretty terrible for all of us out there to start.  We didn't know anyone, we didn't know what to do and for the first few days I was out there, we didn't even have most of our stuff.  It was boring.  I missed my friends from high school.  My best friend from college was in California and my girlfriend was in Wisconsin and I started a countdown until I got to go back to school on day two of summer vacation.  The only thing getting me through were the nightly AIM conversations with my girlfriend.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to where I've at least got my job at Soundoff, which is a testament to prayer in itself, but that story isn't being told now.  I've also moved out of my bedroom on the top floor and onto a spare bed behind a curtain (sheet?) in a corner of the basement.  I couldn't tell you why I did it; I couldn't have told you why I did it then, but its what I preferred.  Perhaps its just what I was comfortable with since my room at home in Lynden was on the basement floor as well.  Anyway, I was working first shift with my hours being something like 7:00-3:30 and then since I had nothing to do, besides the occasional run or shooting hoops by myself, I'd take an afternoon nap.  This became a vicious cycle I couldn't get out of.  I took one nap and then couldn't fall asleep that night and end up with only four or five hours of sleep.  Soundoff was definitely a job I needed, but it certainly wasn't work that was going to challenge me so my energy was spent just getting through the day and then I'd come up home and end up napping again.  I tried so hard to break that cycle.  I consciously fought the urge to nap, but it didn't matter.  Even on the days when I was able to keep myself awake all afternoon, there was still an ingrained tiredness that I had to fight through and when I got through that, I'd be awake and the next thing you do, I'd be laying in bed, staring at the clock as it tells me its one in the morning and I have to be up at 5:30.  It was a miserable experience and I hated it and about the only thing that could compare since then would be the loneliness of my first year of grad school.  That summer was even the first time I struggled with a nihilistic worldview.  Why fight this when life is ultimately meaningless?  However, even in that vortex of suck, something wonderful emerged.  In the times when I felt like I was hitting rock bottom, I still turned to prayer and a tremendous tranquility and the most assured peace I've ever felt would come over me.  I would literally (yes, literally) feel my soul and my entire being being held oh so gently in the palm of God's hand.  I could feel the curves of his hand as I nestled there and He assured that me that even though everything was awful and nothing like what I wanted it to be, that I was taken care of and that nothing could possibly come between Him and me.  The nights when this would happen had such a powerful effect on me that when I first recanted this story at a GradIV Bible study some five or six years later, I had to fight back tears as I told it.  To this day, its still the closest I've ever felt to my creator.

Experiences such as that are the reasons why no matter how deeply I ever get involved with science and all of the people there who want to wish away God, I never will join them.  I had one week in grad school where I had the audacity to tell God that I was going to just stop believing He existed.  That lasted for about an hour.  I've had a good friend ask me if I would be a Christian had I not been raised one.  Honestly, the experience most likely would have been different had I not been a believer at the time, but why change history?  With the experiences I've had and the knowledge that God can manifest Himself to us in any way He so desires, I know that He's there and He's in control.

That's my story.  I'm going back to bed.  Good night all.

I'm being myself, who are you?

I know who I am.  I'm not perfect. There's no need to nod that vigorously.  But yeah, I've got my rough edges and I can be a little raw and can be somewhat abrasive at times.  I like this about myself as I never want to be a finished product.  Certain ex-girlfriends would gladly volunteer that there are times when I can be an insensitive clod.  Its not that bad though - I have been very well liked by every ex's mom though.  I am the type of guy you bring home to mom.  I just don't necessarily fit in with the upper class of society and I like it that way.  I can't wait to have a five year old son so we can share a sense of humor because I still do love me a good fart joke.  I know who I am, but I don't always identify the way I should.  This comes back to something Scott preached about yesterday.  Its easy to start listing off all the things that make me me, but I don't always identify in Christ the way I should.  When things start to go wrong (because of things I've done), I get down on myself instead of seeing myself the way God does, as a clean and forgiven creation of His, and seriously, how awesome is that?  Instead of letting things spiral further, there needs to be a point where I just shake it off and move on and try harder the next time.  Legalism gets nobody anywhere.  I just finished Mark Batterson's "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day" and one of the big things I took away from that was to stop worrying about all of the little things I've done wrong and to start focusing instead on all the things I can do right.  We've all sinned and fallen short and we all definitely will keep doing that continuously.  Knowing that though, let's do something with what we have and step up and see what amazing things we can do instead.

With the exception of you, I dislike everyone in the room

That's right, dear reader.  I love you and only you.  Not those jerks that don't read this blog.  Forget them.

And since I love you so much, I'm going to give you an update on the summer goals since we're about halfway through.  As I'm sure you know, the Mighty Five goal has been accomplished and still was the high point of the summer.  The wine glass shelf was built and I think it looks really nice.  Kentucky hasn't happened yet, but Roger and I will be visiting distilleries and Red River Gorge in a couple of weeks.  Mammoth Cave isn't looking real great right now, but I think I can squeeze in right at the end.  I fully expect to drink Jon has brewed himself as I already have a plane ticket for Portland for the end of the month.

Now for the things that won't happen.  I missed out on the fast food goal on the day I came back from Utah.  I had been gone for ten days and after a fairly boring flight and then another hour drive home, I got back and it was 5:00 and I had no groceries in the house.  I could have made a quick run to Meijer, but I was tired and all I really wanted to do was go through pictures and nothing else, so I made a quick Wendy's run.  P90X2 also won't happen.  I gave up after the first month because some of the routines just get a little long.  Besides that, I missed running.  I haven't given up on exercising at all though.  I'm getting back into a running rhythm and will soon head down to Indy to finally get properly fitted for shoes so I can't have LDub giving me an "I told you so" if my knees literally explode in six years due to buying shoes at Kohls based predominantly on how cool I think they look.  I'm also trying to get back into lifting a little to get some muscle mass back.  My favorite move that I've picked up over the past year is the full lat raise.  Take the standard lat raise and instead of stopping with your arms parallel to the floor, keep raising them all the way to perpendicular.  This should help develop my traps and make them all good and sexy.  The issue with this is that this means I end up only doing running and upper body lifting.  I definitely need to go check out AU's gym and start doing some big leg exercises like deadlifts and good mornings, but not squats, because I don't like squats.  

Everything else currently qualifies as a maybe right now, but I'm ready to declare the summer a success already, assuming my remaining travels are at least half as fun as I expect them to be.

While I young and while I'm able all I want to do is

If you know the song (Green Day's J.A.R.), you know the lyric is left open-ended.  This has been one of the issues I've dealt with this summer.  I'm still fairly youngish and darn right, I'm able to do whatever I want, but this begs the question, what is it that I want to do?  I certainly know its not sitting around on my couch in my underwear while watching the World Cup.  There are my New Year's resolutions I still comment on, but if the best you're taking out of life is being well read and decently attractive with good taste in beer, well, you can do better.  My daily $2 criteria is better, but I think the question found a much better answer in this morning's corporate prayer of confession.

"Lord Jesus, I sin - Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never be content with myself, never think I can reach a point of perfection.  Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self.  Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for thee and not for self, to copy thy words, acts, spirit, to be transformed into thy likeness, to be consecrated wholly to thee, to live entirely to thy glory.  Deliver me from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gall, that with self-loathing, deep contrition, earnest heart searching I may come to thee, cast myself on thee, trust in thee, cry to thee, be delivered to thee."

I'm not saying I know how to do this exactly or that I could just magically switch to this mindset, but I do know there is profound wisdom there.  The self-loathing and deep contrition is already there when I see the all too familiar sugar of sin and give in to tasting it again.  I definitely will never be fully content with myself and I don't ever want to be.  I think I'm fairly raw and will never be a finished product and I love that about myself.  This entire prayer is what I need to strive for but I know I'm certainly not strong enough to do this on my own.

Turn off the lights and turn on the stereo

I like these monthly update posts because it means I can put up any lyrics I want for the title.  Today, I'm going with Iamdynamite's 'Stereo'.

I know we just had one the other day, but I really want a good thunderstorm tomorrow night.  It can't come in the middle of the night either.  One of the things I definitely want in a house is a covered porch where I can just grab a drink and sit outside and admire the ferocity of a good thunderstorm where God just lets you know that He's still in charge, but you're taken care of.  A little fear can be quite healthy.

Back to the update:
1) Work harder.  This is a failure for the month.  I got a little bit of math set up, but I definitely need to put in some decent hours this month and have better communication with Andrew as I work through it.  The physical work might have gone worse.  I stopped doing P90X2 because it became a chore and lets face it; I'm a runner at heart and I missed it.  Once registration opens, there's a good chance I'll sign up for next year's Flying Pig Marathon in Cincy.  I'm a sucker for punishment.

2) Play harder.  The trip to Michigan at the start of the month wasn't much for play.  The trip out to Kansas City/Taum Sauk/St. Louis most definitely was and it made me happy, even if probably wasn't worth it based on the cost and miles traveled.  Getting to celebrate at Sara's wedding was a lot of fun too.

3) Travel more.  So many miles put on the car this past month.  Michigan, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Racine.  I satisfied this goal easily this month.

4) Read more.  After finally finishing East of Eden, I made up for things by knocking out Marie Lu's Legend in the next 24 hours and Nathanael Tilton's The Blackjack Life in the following 72 hours.  I've also gone through the first 200 pages or so of The Book Thief.

5) Drink better beer.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hit up Boulevard while I was out in KC, but its still been a good month beer-wise.  I've got a few Oberons left in the fridge and stopped by Osgood for some good stuff with Brooke and put down a Rail Splitter the other night with the church softball team.

I felt like this on my way home

Its been an exhausting week.  Grandpa has been buried.  Sara has a new last name.  Lots of emotions and one big swing between the emotional extremes.  The funeral was sad because of the finality of it and seeing the struggles of so many people I respect.  The wedding was awesome and Sara and Rick did a fantastic job of planning something that fit them and was still more fun than most weddings I've been to.

That said, I'm quite happy to be home.  All of the traveling this summer has taken its toll on me.  I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine, if only for a couple of weeks.  There's still the Kentucky trip with Roger, the trip back to the Northwest (which I need to buy tickets for and soon) and the trip out to Menninga island.  But for now, I just want to relax and be peaceful.  I need to get back into running and having devotions in my own bed and doing my own cooking.  The key for me will to be just content to be here.  My original plan had me going down to Mammoth Cave on the 12th, but that's the church league softball tournament, which is a pretty weak excuse, but I'm totally okay with it.  I'm going to go read and rest up.  Later everyone.

Is is well with my soul

Late Friday night the Lord finally called Grandpa VG home.  He had been moved to hospice care earlier in the week so when Lisa and I saw Dad had called both of us at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, we knew exactly what had happened before either one of us had answered.  I've been blessed to have experienced so little of death in my 32 years so far.  Compared to the suddenness of Grandma M's death and the awful inevitability of Uncle Doug's death, this one is significantly less sad.  Grandpa had been fighting a losing battle with dementia for several years now and every time you went to visit him, you saw that he was a little less himself.

Honestly, after Grandma M passed away during my freshman year of college, I expected this phone call at many points from Mom and Dad ever since then.  I would occasionally see that I had a voicemail from Mom and just thought, "Please let it not be Grandpa or Grandma. I couldn't handle that right now."  As the years passed though and Grandpa's condition deteriorated, I started to hope for his passing a little more because you could see how much he struggled and how ready he was to meet his maker and hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now, I celebrate in Grandpa's eternal joy even as I fight back a few tears about the finality of it all.

Grandpa certainly left a legacy.  Obviously, his influence first lives on in his eight children, 33 grand-children and scads of present/eventual great-grand-children.  The love and dedication he showed to Grandma was absolutely inspiring, even if it was fun in their later years to watch Grandma start to stand up to him and put him in his place.  He did tremendous work for the church and followed God's call all over the earth.  His academic influence thrives on in our extended family as their are advanced degrees all over the place.  I am proud to bear his name and look forward to passing it on to my own son.

And you say he's just a friend

Originally, this was going to be a post about the one month anniversary of my beard but through some logical steps in thought, this is instead going to be a post about platonic friendships.  Don't lie, you know your mind works in ways that are just as strange.

Fairly soon, my sister will be getting married and along with my other sisters, I will be standing up for her.  I think this is awesome as it shows just how much family means to her.  Further though, I think this is a great idea compared to some weddings I've been to where the bride and groom each have 7+ attendants, all of whom are the same sex.  Its ridiculous to think that being in a relationship precludes you from befriending anyone else of the opposite gender other than your significant other.  I have no idea what the comparable equivalent is for same sex couples but now I'm curious about it.

A little more background on my own dealings should help enlighten my position on this.  Growing up, I was confident, but it was always in who I was intellectually and athletically, but never in my physical appearance.  I never thought I was ugly, but I certainly didn't consider myself anything more than average at best.  This was mostly due to the fact that with a few exceptions, girls simply didn't pay me any attention.  Honestly, its not too hard to blame them.  I didn't have the warmest personality, was fairly naive and my fashion sense was, uh, lacking amongst other things.  Changing friends at the start of high school helped a lot as I now surrounded myself with people who were socially accomplished and aware.  However, with an exception or two, the 'cool' girls once again ignored me, choosing not to change their perception of me.

Things changed when I left for Trinity.  It was a fresh start for me and I could be whoever I wanted to be as only a handful of people had ever met me before.  Once I had established a group of friends, I started realizing that I was actually receiving attention from women.  Admittedly, it actually took me a little while to realize that that's what it was just because I was so unused to it.  This was a totally different feeling and it was fantastic because it hadn't really happened for me before.  Now, I had more of a reason to be confidence; I just needed to sack up and get the courage to do something about it.  Until then though, I really just enjoyed being able to flirt with those around me and have it be welcomed.  Once I started dating Lisa, I didn't really stop that and bless her heart, she put up with it all fairly well and gave me more leeway with it than I probably deserved.  This has continued to this day and I'm willing to flirt with literally almost anyone.  At the risk of sounding stereotypical, I enjoy being around middle aged black women for this reason as they are not ashamed to flirt right back with you and they will make you smile and make your day.  I love to flirt just because I still take it as a compliment when a woman willingly lets me know she's attracted to me. 

The first time this really presented a problem for me though was when I was dating Kim, but I was in Chicago and went to go catch up with Tara.  I had earlier admitted to Kim that I found Tara attractive because, well, she is and I did.  Kim didn't like me hanging out with Tara and basically told me that she didn't trust the situation and would prefer me not to do it in the future.  Some of you may be out there agreeing that I need to cater to my girlfriend and avoid situations like this to help her feel secure.  I hear your point but I offer three rebuttal points.  1) At that point, I had known Tara for five years longer than I knew Kim.  2) Tara was married and had kids at this point.  3) I like Tara's husband and in 2007, he could've stomped me in a fight.  The point is that absolutely nothing was going to happen.  I know to never tell a woman she's over-reacting, but Kim was over-reacting, especially considering my complete and utter lack of indiscretions at that point.  (And honestly, still to this day, there are very few.)  By that point in time, I had certainly earned at least the modicum of trust required to believe that I could hang out with an old married friend without having to worry about what was happening simply because said friend is pretty.  So yeah, I don't get it.  Nothing tells your significant other 'I trust you' like telling them they can't get to know half the population.  I bring up this idea of opposite sex friendships really early with potential girlfriends because I'm never giving up Heather or Steph and if I head back to State in the next year, I'll likely be staying with Coop and if I head back to GR, I frequently grab a beer with Brooke, even though she's the only student to ever ask me out (so far).  I will gladly introduce you to them and invite you along to anything we do, but these are people I care about too much to let go.

On a similar line, I don't get why people assume they can never be friends with an ex.  I very much get it if there's a bad breakup or if the relationship ends because you simply don't like the person any more.  However, if it ends for other reasons such as irreconcilable differences of opinions on meaningful matters or that you're an immature jackass who isn't ready to commit (*cough* me at 19 *cough*), you should at least still have the option of being friends.  You obviously liked the person enough to date them and consider a future so if things didn't turn out badly, why would you get rid of the person completely just because there's some history between the two of you?  If you think its going to be awkward with future suitors, just be transparent about it and keep things out in the open and if that's not good enough, talk it out and see where it goes.  All this said, I don't really consider myself friends with any exes.  Kim and Carolyn fall into the obvious reason category.  I still have tremendous respect for Lisa, but we're not better friends because I screwed that up completely after I ended the relationship.  I take full responsibility for that one.  I can't comment yet on Krista or Tori because I honestly don't know how that will go.  There simply needs to be more time before I could say anything for sure.

To bring this all back around, my beard is awesome.  Unfortunately, it will become redder and redder as the summer goes on and I just hope it doesn't get too bad before the wedding.  When that happens, I turn it into mutton chops and then my friends call me Seamus.  Thanks Bob.

There's nothing here, but what here's mine

I never expected to quote Placebo lyrics, but here they are.  'All alone in space and time, there's nothing here, but what here's mine.'  Its a line I actually really like, but it does lend some insight to some of the things I was discussing in my last post.  Any lethargy I've felt over the past couple of weeks stems from this idea of control and ownership.  The first issue is that I've straight up been lazier that I should be.  I'm not spending as much time working out or reading or mathing as I should be doing and hopefully that gets rectified soon.  More importantly though, my focus has been on the wrong things.  I've focused inward and more specifically on what I do and do not have.  This is never a way to make yourself happy because true happiness is not found in things like that.  Taking this further, the good things that were mentioned were the things that dealt with being a part of something greater and working with others, namely working the food pantry and playing with the softball team.  Ideally, math will give this to me because ever since grad school started, I learned just how hard it is to do math solo and a different set of minds will usually help advance your work.  It might only be through email or Skype, but its still something resembling community.  Softball will end in a few weeks, but hopefully then that will be replaced by church volleyball or perhaps even basketball, even though I haven't played in several years.  Either way, there's still opportunities out there, so I'm going to do what I can to not focus inward, but to look outward to others

On a side note, I was fully prepared to make a comment on how self focused I was by mentioning that in my last post, I used some form of the word 'I' 18 times in the second paragraph.  This basically makes me the LeBron James of this blog.  However, it is really, really hard not to use personal pronouns when writing a blog about your personal feelings, especially when you're trying to avoid discussing others.

I hope you suffer

I gave my heart to the cruel, now it won't beat again.

Unless you're as bad crazy as my ex Carolyn, you know these words are hyperbole.  I don't want you to suffer.  However, since roughly the start of grad school, AFI has been my go to for angry white boy music.  If you know me, you know I'm certainly not that angry, but when I developed my taste in music, it was in high school, and nothing speaks out to white high school boy angst quite like angry rock and since I was learning the benefits of aggression from football, it only made sense that this is what I'd pick up.  Along with that came this facade of toughness and badassery, which is now a word.  When I'm at my best and most confident, this comes out, but anyone who really knows me sees through it and laughs.  It reminds me of Scott on seeing me with a shaved head for the first time - "you'd look like a badass if you weren't such a nice guy."

This is something that's been missing for the last couple of weeks and I don't understand it.  You can never will yourself to simply be happy, but its almost like I don't want to be content with what I have.  No, this summer isn't as I planned a couple of months ago, but that shouldn't be that big of an issue.  I still live a fairly charmed life.  I've got some great things going, including an awesome softball team filled with good dudes and a bunch of traveling that I'll be doing which keeps me busy.  Add in class twice a week and I don't how I've managed to find a way to be mopey for the last two weeks.  Based on this, I don't know why I feel like I don't have community around me.  It might simply be because I've been out of town so much and haven't gotten into a rhythm with my home church in Fishers.  If this is how I feel now, I don't understand how I survived last summer without softball and the relationships I've developed with my fellow volunteers at the food bank.  Someone needs to come smack me out of this and I really really want it to be someone other than Roger, because I know he'd totally do it.  Its embarrassing to get beaten up by someone you outweigh by 75 pounds.

Today is the greatest day I've never known

As its the inspiration for today's post, I'll start with the first couple of verses of Smashing Pumpkins' Today:

"Today is the greatest day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long
I'll burn my eyes out before I get out

I wanted more than life could ever grant me
Bored by the chore of saving face

Today is the greatest day I've never known
Can't wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out before I get out

Pink ribbon scars that never forget
I tried so hard to cleanse these regrets
My angel wings were bruised and restrained
My belly stings"

Yesterday was a zero dollar day.  I've had quite a few of those lately and its really starting to wear on me since I had been doing really well and its totally fallen off.  I can talk all I want on here about greatness or failure and grace and whatnot, but none of it really matters if I'm not putting forth an effort.  That's what's bugged me about my actions most recently as I'm not fighting at all.  I'm not being disciplined in working out or eating correctly or anything really.  To counteract this, I make this pledge.  I vow to make the rest of the week worth $10.  Something needs to change right now and hopefully this will do it.

The rest of the summer may be a little weird since I won't be able to be a creature of routine at all.  Monday will still be softball and Tuesday and Thursday will be class, but there will just be so many weekends where I'll be gone that my focus won't be able to be on the mundane and the every day things.

But I remember you saying that yesterday

End of April resolution update:

1) Work harder - coming soon.  I should be heading up to Michigan this week so I can start working on math stuff.  I've also started P90X2, but have only done a couple of workouts so far.  There was a lot of hiking in Utah obviously, so I'll consider that a win for this month.

2) Play harder - Boom. Done. Utah was awesome, but you already heard me say that a few times.  Softball has been good too, but I'd like for the games to be a little more competitive.

3) Travel more - Yep. Still Utah.  More stuff coming up this month.  June should include travels to Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and maybe Kentucky.  You could almost argue that all of these travels mean I'm running away from Indiana.  You'd probably be right too.

4) Read more - May was better than April.  I'm still going through East of Eden and am about 60% of the way.  This means I at least went through a couple hundred pages, which I'm fine with since its not a book you read for hours on end.  Its very much a book you read 20 pages at a time and chew it over.  Its been a good read so far.

5) Drink better beer - There's currently Oberon in my fridge so that counts.  Luke and I tried a whole bunch of stuff in Utah and while most of it wasn't overly hard, it was fairly good.  Utah was some weird alcohol rules that we had to contend with, but its all good.

New news! I have a date in a little over an hour.  She's probably the girl that's the most like me that I've met in all of my online dating so far.  I'm excited, but a little apprehensive.  As much as I want to talk about it here, I actually really don't want to talk about it publicly at all yet.  If I still feel a little weird about this, I'll probably just talk to Steph about it, because she's become my love guru more willing than anyone else to call me out on any potential bullshit.

Shots fired into the sky are now returning; where .. will you hide?

Alternate title: Still can be great, part two.

As literature nerds (no, I'm not good enough to be one) know everywhere, East of Eden is a retelling of the story of Cain and Abel while the actual biblical account plays into the story quite a bit.  This has been relevant for me since there has been some discussion of greatness in the story and based on my previous posts, its something I've wrestled with lately as well.  One of the excerpts includes comparing the King James version of Genesis 4 versus the American Standard version.  The Chinese character, aptly named Lee, picks up on one main difference in verse 7, namely the wording of "Thou shalt rule over him (sin)" versus "but do thou rule over it".  This encourages him to go back and study the actual Hebrew script to see why this ambiguity and difference of meaning exists.  When he does this, the actual interpretation he finds is, instead of Thou shalt or do Thou is actually Thou mayest, leading him to say,

"Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou', and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win."

And further on,

"And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing - maybe more important than a star.  This is not theology. I have no bent towards gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.  It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe.  It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'."

I'm not going to claim this is anything overly special as its just a posturing of free will over predestination.  However, this is something I desperately needed to read after this week, since I've been struggling through idleness.  As a man, greatness is not something you can grasp or embody.  However, greatness does come through choice.  If I want to be happy or great or whatever, I can't depend on anyone else for that.  That can only come to me through Christ in myself, but with that, there still needs to be action on my part.  Instead of lazing around the apartment in the morning and just not doing anything, I need to make the conscious decision to be disciplined and run from temptation and to make myself the person I want to be.  I've thought about this a lot recently in terms of other people and what I want to tell them, but its hit me hard recently as I wallow in my own filth (not literally).  Instead of looking at others, I need to take care of myself first and make sure things are okay with me.

There is more to this still though.  Greatness does not come easily or grant ease of life.  To quote from earlier in the book,

"“It's because I haven't courage,' said Samuel. 'I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called his name - but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.'

'I'd think there are degrees of greatness,' Adam said.

'I don't think so,' said Samuel. 'That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other - cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be.”"

Have I made my choice?  I don't know.  In some things, such as math, I know I've chosen mediocrity as I couldn't handle the loneliness of greatness in those things.  But for life as a whole, I can't say.  Get back to me when I'm on my deathbed and I'll let you know.

The words are too feeble, they can not contain

Few words, just a couple pictures.  Stop what you're doing and go to Utah.  It will B-L-O-W your mind.

Still can be great

A few weeks ago, I was told I was a great man.  I believe there was some authenticity in the statement, but I don't believe it was full authenticity and it was partly said simply to placate me.  It did get me to thinking though about what it means to be great.  You can certainly define what it means to be great in your own way here.  I was originally going to write a post asking if you had the audacity to be great.  When I consider the things I'm actually good at (math, running, etc.), its all things in which I don't actually consider myself great.  I put in a ton of work on them on I became very good, but certainly nothing where I can't easily find people who are better.  The original post would've been a call to see what you can do to best improve yourself and see if you'd be willing to put in all that time to make yourself awesome at anything.

Instead, hike southern Utah.  You'll understand what great is and where your place in it lies.  Its amazing God gave us something so awe inspiring.

I'm kinda over getting told to throw my hands up in the air

Before you say anything, the title is from Local H's cover of Lorde's Team so no worries, I'm still not necessarily listening to good music even though it is a fantastic cover.  As was promised earlier, here are this year's summer goals, once again, in no particular order.

1) Hike Utah's Mighty Five - Luke and I have this all set up already.  I am excited, oh so excited.

2) Explore Kentucky.  At a minimum, I want to visit Mammoth Cave, hike Red Rock Canyon and tour a distillery.

3) Drink homemade beer.  This is mostly a hope that I'll be out in the pacific northwest during August.

4) Do actual mathematical research on expanding spectral deferred correction.  I have a faculty development grant for this so it should at least have a decent amount of work put into it.

5) Catch up on scripture memory.  I'm going back through the scripture memory plan that URC put out a couple years ago.  I've got the first 10 weeks done or so and I want to get caught back up to the point where I'm on track for the year at the end of August.

6) Get involved in church sports.  I'm already on a church league softball team but I should check out the Wednesday night volleyball as well.

7) Watch the original Star Wars trilogy.  I've never done it.  I'm not sure if I actually will this summer.

8) Build a wine glass shelf so my living room is slightly classier.

9) Complete P90X2.  I tried before. I hurt myself.  I want to make up for that and I want something to do other than running and poorly planned out lifting.  I may take pictures and post them on facebook.

10) Eat no fast food within 75 miles of Anderson.

Truth, covered in security

Be forewarned.  Usually, my posts are 98% thought out before I even start typing.  Tonight, I have a few things I want to cover, but mostly, I'm writing to get these thoughts out of my head and I'm interested to see what all comes out.

First off, yes, I know, its weird to have a post entitled with the same thing as the motto of my entire blog. For the musical reference, go here. However, that's the whole point to this post.  I don't know if I can legitimately keep calling this blog "Truth covered in security".  Things are certainly no longer covered in security.  When I first started, it was just because it was a fun thing to do and a way to keep friends updated because we didn't have facebook and I was in grad school and everyone else was back in Chicago.  Originally, it was named after Local H (who else?) and called "I'm all wrong and all the kids are right."  In the last few years though and especially once I started this again in Indiana, I've been very forthcoming with a lot of things.  I can trace this back to people like Heather and Steph - people I probably shouldn't be good friends with because we don't have a tremendous amount in common, but I dearly love them both like sisters because they're such good people.  The thing I admire about them the most is just how open and honest and real they are and they never held anything back.  They were upfront with their emotions and their struggles and their joys and it was so incredibly refreshing because they didn't try to be anyone other than themselves.  Couple that with the breakthroughs I had in my men's small group at URC where there was a similar feeling and that's something I knew that I had to have.  I had to become open out everything with me.  I don't want to live in shame of anything.  Shame can not win if you do not allow it to fester by hiding it and denying what you've done.  First off, let me say, I don't believe shame is a bad thing.  Shame is the moral equivalent of pain as it just lets you know something is wrong.  If you take care of it, seek forgiveness and learn from your mistakes, the shame should not haunt you.  Once you learn that, the release of shame just becomes so incredibly freeing that its beautiful.  This is what I've set out to do and I think I'm doing it fairly well.  I think this speaks to my spiritual maturity that's occurred over the last few years as I've even further established who I am.  It says something to me when I can put things on here that I know are going to be unappealing to my mom, just because she's the one person in the world who I'd currently want to have believe that I'm perfect.  If I can put that stuff out there, then I know I'm not holding back.

That said, this blog will never just become a free for all.  I try to only write about my thoughts and opinions and experiences and sometimes that means I write about those close to me or even those who I interact with on any given day as they shape my experiences.  Mostly, I try to keep from ragging on others and with a few regrettable exceptions, I definitely stay away from doing that to friends. (Yes, I know which post you're thinking of and it's now been edited.)  I don't know how long this blog will even last.  While its just me, it'll certainly continue to exist because its an easy way for me to reach out to my support system which is spread out all over the country which is great for traveling, but pretty sucktastic for actually being a support system.  If I get married and have kids and life gets really busy or if my wife becomes uncomfortable with this blog, at the least it would become password protected or even possibly just given up completely. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Finally, I started up church league summer softball yesterday.  It was great to get out there again even though I only know one guy on the team and he's the sports ministry director at our church.  He's a really good dude though and I look forward to getting to know the other guys better.  The game was a blowout because our team doesn't suck, but we were placed in the bottom league because we were new and the leagues our Euro-soccer style where you have to earn your way up.  I started off poorly by popping out to catcher and lazily flying out to right in my first two at-bats.  I also botched a soft line drive by timing my jump incorrectly early on.  It was just early jitters though.  I ended up playing decent defense but that'll improve as I get back in the swings.  After those two early outs, I ended up reaching base the other seven times I batted including a couple of home runs (one was a four base error) and a walk.  I hate walking but none of the pitches were close.  The only disappointing thing about this league is that once again, I don't think any of the other guys on the team are single, which isn't a big deal, but I'd just love to happen some single guys to connect with.  I mentioned a possible singles ministry to my pastor as I was interviewing for membership at my church on Sunday, so maybe something will eventually happen with this, but I'm not holding my breath.  Additionally, playing church league sports will be part of my summer goals, which will be the next post that comes up once exam week ends in a few days.  I can't wait until my summer goals are simply 1) Be an awesome husband. 2) Be a kick-ass dad.