Here is Where I Carry on about my Daily Life, and usually some stuff about Technology!
To most people computers are about accomplishing a task. Getting from A to B as simply as they can, so to speak. Almost no one reading this really cares much about what file format you are saving that word document in as long as the person you are sending it to can read it. Likewise, you probably don’t care how these web pages get from the server to your computer, you just care that it works.
( Standards make things "Just work )
Life has been more than a little crazy for me for a while now. I’ve been struggling hard with some issues of trusting God, or much of anyone, since leaving Mercy Vineyard.
But, in light of the fact that I feel a little better today, I thought it might be good to share with people some tangible things that have been helpful to me in attempting to stave off heavy depression as fall is fast approaching in Minnesota.
( A list of helpful things for me )
So, I still feel pretty crappy, but all those things have helped a lot in improving my last few weeks. I think I’m on an upswing at the moment.
And one thing that I think really nice that Caleb said to me a few months ago while I was at his house for dinner was something like: “I know you are having some issues with church, if you don’t mind, can I ask you how you are doing.” In the last couple weeks when thinking about how the people around me, I realized that I want to be asking that same question more of the ones that I know have had or are having a tough time. And I believe whole-heartedly that it will help my own disposition, as well as help any feelings of rejection or abandonment they are having.
I want to say this strongly to some of my friends, especially the Minnesotans. You don’t have to be ’strong’, or even be invited into a situation / problem to ask a friend “you don’t look so great, how are you doing?” And the best part is that after you ask your work is done, you are pretty much off the hook at that point and they can answer however they feel like answering. (But you should probably offer to pray for them if they are feeling bad.) No need for ’smart’ advice or sage wisdom or rebuking or any words at all really. All it takes is a sympathetic ear.
Remember, we are all broken in some way, and we are all trying the best we can to cope with the hand life has dealt us. We don’t have to have it all together to help others (thank the Lord, cuz it isn’t like this can happen anyway), and we can even be more messed up than someone else and still be there for them in a tough time with that simple question: “How are you doing…no really, how are you doing?” And that is all it takes to help a friend in need feel a little love.
I figured out how to pull this picture off my phone this morning. I expect Dirk and Val will have many, many, more of these up eventually, but I thought you all might like to see one in the mean-time.
For comparison, if you look here is a picture of when Daniel was born.
Dirk called me late last night to let me know that they were going to the hospital. This morning Dirk called and said that Lila was born at about 8:15am. Everything when fine, baby and Mother are fine. Dirk even got a little sleep last night.
So, there you have it, consider yourself informed until Dirk and Val get back from the hospital.
This is a CD filled with some high quality free software.
I can speak for the windows one in saying I use almost half of those programs on a daily basis, and have about 2/3 of them installed on all of my windows machines, and most of the cross-platform ones I have installed on linux as well. Also several others that I’ve been reading about on their website that I’ve never heard of appear to be hidden gems to me that look very useful and very well done.
Check the Questions and Answers section to see the list of software packages on the CD.
The Open CD is also a good project with a similar aim in mind, but I prefer some of the Starving Students CD software in comparable categories (i.e. I prefer uTorrent instead of Azureus for my bittorrent needs)
I realized I haven’t updated since I got back from my fishing trip in Canada, and thought you might all like an update.
On August 25th I picked up Craig, a friend of my Dad’s son-in-law, from the airport. An hour or so later my Dad and Lyle (the father-in-law of Craig) arrived at my house.
We at my massive burgers that I love to make, and I packed, and we went to sleep.
5AM the next morning we took off. Arriving at Browns Clearwater West Lodge around 2pm, and were across the two major lakes and unpacked around 6 or 7.
The next several days were filled with lots of driving the boat around, sunshine, some rain, good eating of fried and boiled fish, and sleeping in late in the tent.
Some highlights included:
- Dad trying to find a portage to a smaller lake, which eventually devolved into he and I hiking through very dense woods until we found the lake, only to return and discover the guys in the boat had found the entrance marked with a stack of rocks about 300 yards down the shore.
- I did a good bit of reading in my spare time, mostly the Bible and “The Gospel of the Kingdom” which I should try to finish soon, so I can start some other books.
- Everyone but me caught some decent sized fish, Northern up to about 10 lbs and bass up to 3 -3.5lbs.
- Dad flipped the canoe trying to grab a rod and reel that slipped out of his hands. The upside to this is that it wasn’t me who flipped the canoe, which is usually what happens, so I got to mock him a lot for that.
- The sunsets were nothing short of amazing. They always are on the lakes up north, but still, that alone is worth the price of admission.
- I didn’t have to clean any fish, or even help clean fish. I hate cleaning fish, which is a big part of why I don’t fish much. The other guys on this trip were really helpful.
- having a campsite with pre-defined / dug crappers. Usually we dig our own holes….easily my least favorite part of these trips, so this campsite was a huge plus.
Some downsides:
- Lost my drivers license in the canoe flipping incident, as well as Dad’s $100 reel and the pole he made for his dad a long time ago.
- I hit my heel on the gas-cap of the boat trying to step in barefoot from a tall rock. This hurt a lot and I was still limping until yesterday.
- Dad is getting weird as he gets old…very spacey and hard to talk to cuz you can’t tell if he is listening or not.
- We had to go home early cuz Craig got sick! Easily the worst part of the trip. My Dad and I were so sad and disappointed.
So, we came out on Friday instead of Sunday, and drove back to Minneapolis, arriving at about 11pm at my house. Dad and Lyle left at 8am after Lyle dropped off Craig at the airport. Made for a very depressing Saturday until Josh Carlson and I went to see SuperBad (awesome BTW, and the squirrel-boy totally = McLovin), and a weird Sunday where I went to church by myself for the first time in a long time.
Sunday afternoon I hung up the canoe in the garage (Dad gave me a canoe!), and we did our fantasy draft. Most the guys were at my place, so there were 6 laptops sitting in my living room, which looked pretty humorous.
Monday I finished up un-doing all the stupid stuff Dell does to computers when you get them from them new, so that Lauren would have our new laptop (which finally arrived while we were gone) for school on Tuesday, and then hung out with Glynn, DC, and Cristin for a while before picking Lauren up from the airport.
All-in-all it was a great trip, and I feel like I got a lot of time to relax and talk to God about some pretty big stuff that has been weighing me down lately. And I would say after Saturday my disposition has been improving relative to some of the tough things going on in my life over the last few months. I’m still wrestling with some issues around the topic of theodicy, and someday I might actually post a really long post I’ve almost finished writing about it. But for now, I’m feeling a little more like I can try to trust God and his church again. And that is is why I decided to go to small group Tuesday with Lauren for the first time in a couple of months.
