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“Can anybody hear me?
Can anybody see me?
Does anyone really understand?

We’re looking for some action!
We need something to happen!
No more wasted nights and days!
We’re looking for some action!”

- Fireflight — Action

(I know, another non-Relient K tie-in… I can’t listen to Relient K all the time!)

Short post tonight, just had something burning in my head…

In case you hadn’t noticed (head under a rock, generally oblivious, completely self-absorbed, or in a coma), there’s an election coming up. Ok, so it’s a midterm election, so nothing important or anything (kidding…) But here’s the thing: I get all fired up about it, get pissed off about what I perceive to be complete lies, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), or just good old fashioned ignorance, and generally get agitated in a manner that is completely opposite my usual personality. Sure, the coffee doesn’t help, but suffice it to say that politics is something I feel passionately about.

So why is it that I so rarely get this passionate about more important things (face it, politics is not the end-all and be-all of life), like, oh, I dunno, my faith?

I guess, as usual, I have a long ways to go.

“Honesty is a hard attribute to find
When we all want to seem like we’ve got it all figured out
Well let me be the first to say I don’t have a clue
I don’t have all the answers
Ain’t gonna pretend like I do
Just trying, to find my way
Trying, to find my way the best that I know how”
- Lifehouse — Trying
(Dude, it’s not a Relient K tie-in… but it’s still a music tie-in, and so it goes…)

Blast… I lost my train of thought… that’s the problem with hearing a song on the drive home, thinking about the words, thinking it would be a good blog post… and then not sitting down to write it for a good 30 minutes. Blast.

Basically, it was this. Why is it that we (maybe it’s just me, but I doubt it) only admit that we don’t have it all together, that we don’t know all the answers, that we’re more likely to make a mess of things than anything else, when the going gets tough? Why does it take getting kicked around to admit, “ok, yeah… completely blew that one…”?

And I’m not saying that things are going badly or anything like that, so no freaking out. I’m just saying, why is it that usually we only admit that we aren’t as self sufficient as we’d like to think when things are bad?

I have the shred of a couple different thoughts on the subject, but nothing coherent. Maybe later, after I’ve had some time to think about it.

Or maybe it’s just me. But I doubt it.

“Our concentration it contains a deadly flaw
Our conversations change from words to blah, blah, blah
We took prescription drugs, but look how much good that did
Well I think I had a point, but I just got distracted…”
- Relient K — Maintain Conciousness

Yes, there probably is a Relient K song that’s relevant to any blog post, at least in my head. Works for me.

So yeah… once again, it’s been weeks since my last post. So I suck at this. Whatever. More importantly, I should probably follow up on a couple things from that post. Actually, the Relient K songs in both posts are applicable here. Trust me.

So yeah, my latest attempt at actually, you know, exercising regularly worked out about as well as all my previous attempts. As usual, it’s a question of motivation. Nothing can change the fact that I just hate running. The best I’ve ever done was when I was swimming every night for a couple weeks there. That actually worked pretty well. The problem is that the pool at my complex closes at 10pm, and doesn’t open until 8am. Since I’m not a morning person, that’s kind of a problem. A lot of nights I don’t even start thinking about exercising until well after 10 (usually after I quit playing whatever game I was playing or watching whatever TV show I was watching). Basically, I’m a lazy-ass slacker.

Whatever.

My experiment with going for a week without any tech distractions went about as well as the exercise thing did. Actually, I only made it a few days. I posted that post Monday night (well, Tuesday morning technically), and by Friday night the experiment was completely shot. See, there were a couple of problems. One, I knew that on Saturday that I was going to be driving about 6 hours total, and there was no way I was doing that without my iPod. That didn’t exactly give me any incentive to keep the experiment going. Two, I made the mistake of ordering a couple new toys, one of which was delivered on Friday.

The other thing about the experiment that kind of threw things off was that I did it on a week where i was fairly busy. Tuesday and Wednesday night I was out with friends, Friday I was supposed to be but plans fell through, and I was out pretty much all weekend. So there wasn’t much time that I was wasting on video games when I could have been doing something else. But I did kind of learn a couple things from the whole process:

1) I can’t really un-plug while I’m at home. To some extent, I am dependent on it. If I’m home (ie not out of town on vacation, etc), people expect to be able to reach me via email, IM, web forum, etc. That’s not really a bad thing. Better than being completely isolated.

2) Considering how much of that week I was out with friends and not glued to my computer, I guess I can safely say that things are pretty balanced. If I were choosing video games over hanging out with friends, ok, that’d be a problem. As it is? Eh. Could I stand to play fewer hours of video games? Sure. Is it the end of the world? Hardly.

Of course, with that said, my xbox 360 was delivered on Saturday, and on Monday I picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for it, and I’ve been playing it every spare moment. I’m totally hooked. I should have know this would happen. I’m one of these people that gets totally engrossed in stories. If I pick up a good book, I will read non-stop until I get through it. When Jeremy got me to play Chrono Trigger (emulated many many years after it actually came out for SNES), I spent hours playing through it, and that was with the walkthrough (I was really more interested in the story than anything else).

KotOR was very similar. Once I got started, the story sucked me in, and the game play was excellent as well. It’s a great game, especially if you like RPGs. It’s actually an original xbox title, and I have to say I’m not terribly impressed with the back compatibility that Microsoft implemented on the 360. The game was (mostly) playable, but it suffered from sound glitches and stuttering during the cut-scenes. It also had some lag issues, especially in combat (which is the last time you want lag). I actually almost got stuck at one point because the compatibility software would freeze every time I got to a particular spot. Needless to say, I was not happy until I finally got around the bug (and I’m still not sure what exactly fixed it).

But, I beat it tonight, so life can go back to normal. I guess I should clean my apartment. Like I said, I’ve been playing it every spare moment. I should probably wait a couple weeks before I replay it (last time I played it as a light-side character, next time I’ll play as a dark-side character). And I should definitely wait a while until I buy KotOR 2.

Oh, and I want to be a Jedi. Just leave my lightsaber on the table, thanks.

…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.

All the cool kids are doing the WordPress thing, so I decided to check it out. I like it. Plus, as some of you are aware, I like tinkering with the tech part of the blog more than I like posting. So, here we are.

And I even have some stuff I want to write about. Oh well. I’ll get to it later.

And just because I’m a huge geek, I might check out the whole WordPress on your own server thing. Plus it’ll let me put off blogging for longer.