Even in a global economy in which competition is getting stiffer all the time, we must firm up our resolve and confront the challenges we've erected.  We're in quite a pickle.  The challenges are only growing.

It's been three months since I blogged that I hadn't blogged in a month.  Huh...

Okay, things that have gone down in four months...

Worked a lot, spent a lot of time with Paula, watched all of So You Think You Can Dance in hi-def with Paula, learned to play Ring of Fire on the guitar, went to the doctor for the first time, hiked Rattlesnake Ridge a couple of times, fell in love, went to Vegas, got really drunk in Vegas, called Paula while really drunk in Vegas, saw Cirque Du Soleil in Vegas, came home, took Paula to the annual family campout, drove 5300 miles to Arkansas and back with Paula, went offroading in Moab and Telluride, drove part of Route 66, entered Texas, left Texas, installed a CB radio in the Jeep, put the soft top on the Jeep, met Paula's family and friends in Arkansas, ate chicken in Arkansas, asked Paula's dad for his blessing in Arkansas, saw some fish in Missouri, bought a ring, proposed to my best friend, bought a bed, saw Tropic Thunder, smooched a lot, made some chicken fajita pizzas, went to the cage fights and cheered the carnage, became a wine connosieur, drove some speedboats, and generally kicked some ass.

It was a good four months.

Pogacha.  Northwest flavor.  Croatian heritage.  Good stuff.

Paula and I went to Cirque du Soleil last night.  The Corteo show.  I've been trying to decide what was my favorite and act and I think I've settled on the ladder guy.  He had a ladder.  He climbed on it.  He bounced on it.  He stood on his hands on top of it.  He looked like a happy man too.  I found him on YouTube:

Ladder Dude

A wedding with a good 10-90 service-to-reception ratio.

Fighting Chinese dragon puppets.  I went into the wrong business.

Paula and I having dinner with my parents.

Went to church.  Huh.

Dried mangos with only one ingredient.

Free plastic bags.

Forward convenience store clerks:  "Why are you having dogs?  You should be having babies."

High-def NBA playoff games.

Freeway rest area coffee.

  I’m trying not to work so hard or long this week, having completed my previous tasks, and having some breathing room in beginning new ones.  This is difficult for me, as I have acclimated myself to always being busy.  Sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself otherwise.

  Which may be why I picked up my Bible this morning.  Okay, yes, I’ll wait.  Catch your breath.  Good.  Shall we continue?

  Yes, I picked up my Bible this morning.

  I wish I could tell you I had a great epiphany from doing this, that I felt immensely close to God, that the words came alive before my very eyes.  But I can’t.  They were words.  Good words, no doubt.  I read Galatians, and I’ve always liked Galatians.  The whole "It’s for freedom that Christ set us free" bit has always had a resonance for me.  I believe it.  I really do.  Galatians 5:1.  It’s good stuff.

  I guess one thing popped out.  Don’t know why I’d never seen it before.  It’s the very next verse, after all.  "Listen!  I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you."  Seems pretty harsh.  If you give in to someone pushing the previous commandments, you can forget about the work of Christ?  Wow.

  How many commandments are included in this?  All of them?  Some of them?  Is it following the commandments themselves, or thinking that following them is the answer, or is it that the commandments were new to the Galatians, newer even than the gospel, and so getting circumcised was a turning away from the gospel?

  My guess is that it’s one of the last two.  Which is of course a much more difficult thing to deal with than a simple "follow the commandments" or "don’t follow the commandments" instruction.

  Here’s the thing, in 5:13-14, Paul says, "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;  only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.  For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ’You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’"

  So basically commandments are no good.  No amount of following formulas, strategies, or commandments is going to do one damn thing to make us pleasing to God.  He wants us to love each other.

  Well, so much for sin.  Sin is breaking a commandment, right?  Not anymore.  Sin is redefined as internal now.  Am I loving?  Am I furthering God’s love?  Or am I acting out of selfishness?  Whoah.  Am I doing good things for selfish reasons?  What are my motivations?  No, really, I’m asking.  What are my motivations?  And if I can only rarely understand my own motivations, how can I possibly judge another’s?

  This is getting personal.  I don’t think I’m going to post more about this.

  Take care everyone.

  One last thing.  I have sometimes joked that I worship God in nature, rather than going to church.  It’s an old line, of course.  Very useful evasion.  And I get called on it.  Fair enough.

  But I just found something.  Listen to Martin Luther:  "God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars."  Preach on, Brother Luther.  Preach on.

  Maybe I’ll go to church next week.

  So Andy is up visiting for the weekend.  Yesterday, we picked up Paula and headed up to Gold Bar to drive some trails.  Good time.  Good time.  Driving on rocks.  Getting muddy, including one hole that turned out to be deeper than we thought.  (Mud above the bottoms of the doors.  Sweet!)  And we sat and watched a lifted F-250 get about half a second from tipping over while trying to climb a crumbly slope that was way too steep for him.

  Then we had dinner at the Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville, which is awesome, by the way.  BBQ pizza, herb-crusted chicken, and crab ravioli.

  Next up was Capitol Hill, and some live music, which was pretty good, if a little cheesy at times.  ("I decided to stop writing songs about things that could happen, because that’s too easy, so I wrote songs about what did happen.  This one is called Sad, Sad Girl...")

  Then we dropped Paula off and Andy and I finished out the night with some cheeseburgers and shakes at Dick’s.  I could end every night like that and be happy.  Oh, throw in a beer or two, maybe some Johnny Cash, and yeah it would be nice if the Beav’s went to the College World Series again this year, but seriously... cheeseburger’s and shakes at Dick’s.  It’s a good life.

  Which is all a long-winded way of saying that it’s now 12:15 and I only just got up and made a pot of coffee, so so much for going to church this week!  Andy is still asleep, the dog just came over and sat by my feet, there’s still a little bit of snow on the ground from last Monday, it’s sunny, the coffee’s good, my work is done, I’ve got the whole day, so guess what?  I’m happy.  Thanks God, for what You give us.

  Now I have to figure out what we’re gonna do today.

Without comment:

http://exaltinggod.com/2008/03/04/the-law-of-love/

Warning for the sensitive:  I’m going to talk about my relationship with God, and I’m also going to drop an f-bomb.  Whoops.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, inspired by a bunch of conversations with various people, and I’m feeling pretty humbled right now, because I’ve realized that I don’t really know what it means to be a Christian anymore.

This is a surprising realization to me.

Because I think about God a lot, and what He might want, and Lord knows that lessons and commandments and memory verses were pounded into me from a young age.

I went to church on Easter.  I went once about 6 weeks before that.  I know I went on Christmas Eve, and I probably went once in the summer, and I’m pretty sure I showed up for my niece’s dedication last year.

Do you see a pattern?  I’m starting to wonder why I’ve always cared a lot about finding God, but never cared much about going to church.  I’ve always been told a Christian should want to go to church and read his Bible and have a quiet time every single morning and pray at least 37 minutes a day, and guess what?  I don’t do any of that stuff.  And I think I’m a Christian, despite this.  So maybe all my old definitions of a Christian are just so much bullshit.

I just asked myself a couple questions.  Do you believe in God?  Yes.  Do you believe in Jesus?  Yes.  Do you believe He died and rose again?  Yes.  Are you and do you want to continue being a Christian?  Yes.

And one final question:  Do you know what any of this means for you?  Right here?  Right now?  What next?

I have no fucking clue.  And it’s four questions, anyway.

The commandments aren’t doing it for me anymore.  I need something better.  And I’ve been doing some reading and been coming to the realization that Jesus gave us something better, but we just ignore it.  Cause we like commandments.  We really, really like commandments.

So I’m trying to figure this out.  And I’m waiting.  And trying to remember about Jesus and Peter and the boat.  So Jesus, in case you happen to be walking by, I’m the guy working at the laptop.  I’ll have my feet up on my desk, and I’ll be wearing a Banana Republic shirt.  Cause that’s who I am.

In less than 30 days, the USGS will deliver a report on newly found (or at least accessible) oil reserves under the Dakotas and Montana.  If they report as expected, these new reserves will be the largest find since Saudi Arabia in 1938, will put the U.S. only slightly behind Saudi Arabia in known reserves, and destroy OPECs stranglehold on world oil markets.

Keep your eyes open.  This is big.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.13s.html

It's kind've weird, after so long of go, go, go, to have a few moments with nothing requiring immediate attention.  So I just took a nap in my office.  Leaning back in my chair.  With my legs up on the desk.  And the blinds pulled down.

Towards the end, I realized that I had become "hyper-aware".  I was still asleep.  I'm pretty sure I could not have consciously chosen to get up yet.  But my ears!  I heard everything in the office.  And my heart was pounding.  Strange feeling.  Asleep but completely aware.

Just dropped the project to test.  4 months of work.  Done.  I am really looking forward to having a normal life again.

I learned the "Rock Out Guy"'s name.  It's Kenny.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have made a snake robot - possibly the coolest, yet creepiest, thing I've seen in a week.

I just looked out my window.  A tree is blooming.  That makes me happy.  Makes me want to sit under a tree.

I have half an hour until my next meeting.  I'm going to spend it picking my guitar, and practicing my new Johnny Cash song.

You never know what you're gonna get in an interview.  Who will show up?  Will they show up?  It's a mystery!  A puzzle to be pondered while preparing.  So this morning I got into work early and prepared and puzzled my puzzler.  I had diagrams on the whiteboard to be interpreted.  I had lists of questions to ask.  I had diagrams I wanted him to guess that he should draw.

My puzzle was a pleasant surprise today.  He did well.  He was friendly.  He asked intelligent questions.  He drew my diagrams.  So I hired him.  Starting with a short contract and then we can re-evaluate.  That was a pleasant beginning to the day.

Contrast that with one of the resumes I read last night.  Had the poor guy's college GPA on it.  I suppose I'd put my GPA on there too if I had had a 4.0.  He didn't.  He had a 2.8.  So I'm asking myself, "Really?  You're really proud of that?"  I've never been too hung up on GPAs.  For my purposes, I'll take a 3.2 Mathematician over a 4.0 Fashion Designer any day.  And I'll take a dropout Carpenter with good handiwork over any of 'em.  And people make choices, forced or voluntary, that influence priorities.  School, work, family.  Pick two.

But a resume should show your high points.  Believe me, there'll be plenty of time to find shortcomings later on.  So I'm asking myself, "Really?"  So that one went in the round file.

But I hired the guy today.  And I'm feeling good about the company's future.  And I had Halibut fish and chips for lunch.

This was a good day.  I give it a 3.8.

  I've been very tired lately, and I'm ready to be done with that particular feeling.  Too many hours of work.  Even too many hours of recreation.  Too little Nothing Time*.

  I've been falling asleep everywhere lately.  In my chair at the office, on the couch with the tv on.  I even drank a Red Bull to get home safely one night.  THAT was nasty, but necessary, and totally worth it.  And I fell asleep while reading last night, sitting up in bed, with the lights on.  I remember hearing my phone beep and grumbling about its impertinence until I fortunately became aware enough to remember that it was the person I most wanted to talk to last night.

  Afterwards, I went back to sleep and got nearly 8 hours, but the last several were overlaid with a tremendous headache that didn't disappear until very late this morning.  I get those when I go to sleep too far past the point of exhaustion.  And I have to get up because laying there just makes it worse.

  You might read this and think I'm unhappy.  I'm not.  I'm just tired.  And I'm less so today than yesterday.  And I hope to continue that trend tomorrow.  Thursday should also be good.  Friday is looking fantastic.  Saturday... I don't even have words to describe Saturday.

* - Nothing Time:  Time where you do nothing, think about nothing, wait for nothing.  Contrast with work, recreation, reading, watching tv, fishing, offroading, talking with friends, sleeping, riding the bus.  My favorite Nothing Time is Saturday morning, with a cup of coffee, sitting looking out the windows at the trees waving in the breeze.