402accessdenied

…We all struggle with forward motion
Cause forward motion is harder than it sounds
Well every time I gain some ground
I gotta turn myself around again
It’s harder than it sounds

- Relient K — Forward Motion

And as usual, the post title/intro only makes sense in my head. Whatever.

I went running tonight. I know, I know. Like most of you that (actually) read the semi-coherent ramblings on this page, I hate running (Kayte, you’re obviously the exception). In truth, I pretty much hate physical exertion. Oh, some forms are less detested than others, but at the end of the day, there are just other things I enjoy more. Video games, eating, and drinking massive quantities of sugared, caffeinated beverages for example. Clearly what I enjoy and and what I despise are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

But here’s the thing. I’m 22, and relatively healthy. There’s absolutely no reason that I should be as out of shape and carrying as much extra weight as I am (BMI of ~30 tyvm). Yes, I know there’s considerable debate about the usefulness of the BMI scale. Yes, I realize with my build I will likely never get that number down to the low 20s. I’m really ok with that.

At the end of the day, like most things, it’s a question of motivation. Forward motion, if you will. The continued lyrics of that song are:

“Well every time I gain some ground
I gotta turn myself around again
Its harder than it sounds
Well every time I gain some ground
I gotta turn myself around again”

I don’t know about you, but I know that feeling pretty well.

– Massive, random topic jump. You’ve been warned. The post title still applies, however. –

It’s no secret that I’m very much a tech person. Geek, nerd, dork, I’ve been called them all. Some would go so far as to label me obsessive. The headline of the day for me is not “Jessica’s pregnant bulge! Is it Nicks’?” nor is it “Iranian president tells America to shove it, Bush responds by sticking his tongue out.” No, the headline of the day for me is something along the lines of “Is this how PS3 games will be packaged?” (Yes, that one is a real headline. Yes, I clicked on it. Yes, it really was as pointless as it sounds. No, the other two headlines weren’t real.) I realize that there is nothing profane about the statement “Kyle and I are taking Monday to play with our Wiis,” and that it had nothing to do with two grown men skipping work and playing with long, cylindrical objects all day (waiiiiiiit…)

In short (as if I’m ever concise), I’m a complete tech junkie. And as I commented to another techie the other day (the person in question is far less obsessed than I), I spend way too much time on my computer. Honestly, there probably isn’t an hour in the day when I’m not absorbed with some gadget (sleeping and when I’m out with friends don’t count).

So here’s the plan. As of tonight, I’m unplugging for a week. But there are some conditions.

1) Work doesn’t count. My boss would drop kick me if I said I wasn’t touching my computer. Music at my desk is also permissible. It’s hard enough to stay focused as is.

2) My cell phone doesn’t count. While I realize this seems like it makes the rest of the plan pointless, I have to exempt it. It’s my only phone, and my primary form of communication. I don’t have e-mail access on it, it doesn’t play music, I can’t access the web from it, and other than taking it out of my pocket for the sheer point of flipping it open and looking at the screen, I really don’t use it much.

3) Once a day I will access my (non-work) e-mail account, and go through any waiting AIM messages. This exemption is (again) for communication purposes.

4) iPod use is allowed while working out. Other than that (and the aforementioned work exemption), music is disallowed. This one is a bit extreme, as I love music. But here again, my free time is completely saturated with music. It’s a miracle my brain can still find time to think.

The communication exemptions really don’t change a whole lot. The fact of the matter is, most of my excessive, wasted tech time is spent on entertainment, eg surfing the web, watching tv, playing video games.

The real question is, will I be able to make it all week?

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

- Jim Elliot

Today I went to the memorial service for a girl I never knew. She was 25, and the sister of one of my friends. She died in a plane crash a week ago, just south of the Mexico border. The small plane had left San Diego just an hour or so earlier, destined for a clinic in Mexico, where she volunteered. She was a nurse, and in addition to her job providing care at the hospital for terminal cancer patients, she worked as a medical missionary, serving and ministering to the poor in Mexico.

I’m a firm believer that we cannot know while we are still alive the impact we have had on those around us. For better or for worse, the effects of our lives ripple outward, like a stone thrown into the middle of a lake.

Maybe it’s better that way. I don’t know.

What I do know is this: Brianne’s life touched more people than she could possibly realize, and in a more profound way than she could ever imagine. Through her faith and service, she left a mark on the world around her. She loved God, committed her life to knowing and serving him, and died doing just that. As I listened to people talk at the service today, I knew that this was a girl that had had a profound impact on her family, friends, co-workers, teachers, and the list goes on.

She has had an impact on my life, and she never met me.

Ok, so I think I’ve used that title before. Whatever. It suits my mood.

(And bonus points to the first person that can tell me the significance of that phrase… though Google makes that too easy, so not too many bonus points.)

It’s a self defeating cycle. Blogging that is. Let me explain.

So I get home from work, or hanging out, or whatever. Mostly all I want to do at this point is chill out (or maybe go hang out if I just got home from work). So I chill for a while until I start getting tired, and decide I should probably head toward bed. I’ll think about blogging, but put it off because 1) I’m tired, and 2) most days nothing happened that was exciting enough to blog about.

And so it repeats, for a week or two. Then I get into an even more dangerous cycle. See, at that point, the problem is no longer that there’s nothing to blog about. No, the problem at that point is that it’s been so long since I blogged that there’s a ton of stuff to write about (interesting or not). Which in turn makes me not want to write about it, just because of the shear effort required to try and remember what happened a few weeks ago, and write something that isn’t going to immediately induce sleep in anyone who reads it.

Once I’ve entered that cycle, then it’s a quick hop to the infinite procrastination cycle. The one where, since I haven’t dealt with it in a while, and there’s no pressing need to deal with it now, I simply put it off for another day.

I guess that’s just a really long way of saying I’m rather bad at this whole blogging thing.

So anyway, I guess I’ll try to remember what’s been going on and not bore you. But it may be too late for that.

(Let’s see, where did my last real post leave off… oh yes, I descended into a rant about Microsoft and promised I’d write more real stuff later… oops).

So summer is pretty much officially over. Oh, the weather’s still pretty nice (pretty perfect as far as I’m concerned… heat is overrated), but none the less, summer is quickly slipping away. The local high school is back in session (and I’m glad I don’t leave for work too early in the morning… stupid kids trying to cross the street to get to school, not to mention the motorcycle cop that likes to camp out in the 45 zone that becomes a 25 “when children are present,” whatever that means. I wish they’d just put a blinking light up so you knew when to go 25 and when to go 45.) Colleges are (mostly) back in session (as evidenced by the fact that my buddy list frequently extends off my screen).

I have to admit, I’m glad that I don’t have to head back to school this fall for the beginning of another semester, and at the same time, I miss it.

Anyway, last weekend (Labor Day), I took a couple of vacation days and took a long weekend to fly out to Austin, TX to visit a couple of friends from UM that are living there now. Austin’s a pretty nice area, other than being too hot, and seems like it could be a pretty decent place to live. Mostly I spent some time just hanging out, seeing some of the area, and hanging out some more. You can definitely tell it’s a college town; there’s one downtown street (6th St.) that has more bars and clubs than you can even imagine (with some pretty sweet names too, “Chuggin’ Monkey” and “The Dizzy Rooster”, just to name a couple). It’s a pretty area, totally not the sandy desert-like environment that jumps to mind when you think about the Southwest. Lake Travis is a nearby (man-made) lake, and I spent Monday out there on a couple of boats, chillin’, doing some grilling, and swimming. I even got the chance to water ski, something that I hadn’t done in over a year, so that was fun.

So yeah, that’s about all of the excitement I’ve had lately. My friend Kelsi (not to be confused with Kelsey) left the country this past Saturday for about 7 months, a month or so in Denmark to sight-see and visit with a friend over there, and then 6 months doing a Youth With a Mission (YWAM) trip, of which the first 3 months will be in Australia for training, followed by 3 months somewhere else in the world. This is her second YWAM trip, and she was pretty excited about it. I haven’t known her long enough to really know (obviously), but she says that the first trip changed her a ton, and she was pretty excited to see how God would use her and change her this time around.

Oh, and I get my bed tomorrow, so I’ll finally get to put the air mattress away! I suppose that’s kind of exciting (but probably only to me).

Peace out kids.