Liz and I are dog people.  We both grew up with dogs and continue to want dogs in our life.  When we got married one of the next life “to do’s” on our list was to get a dog.  The type of dog we landed on was 15-30 lbs.  Definitely wanted a smaller pooch, because we live in a small place with small areas of recreation.  Liz is partial to beagles and boston terriers.  I am partial to those, but am also fond of terrier muts (small, great personalities, built to last).  We also had a few other things we wanted in our future dog:

• Good with kids
• Good with other dogs
• Good with strangers

Originally we were going to pursue this to do last spring, but the cost to fix my teeth pushed it back.  We figured we had spent enough hard earned money for awhile.  After that our new goal was Spring 2011 to get a dog.

Two weeks ago Liz was curious about dog postings on Craigslist and searched “beagle” (and no, it wasn’t under the adult services section).  Up popped an add for Isabelle (Izzy), a poogle (poodle/beagle mix).  The add said 4 years old, fixed, house trained, lives with cats, other dogs, and small kids.  She was listed at $50, which is a steal for any dog I think.  Liz and I talked and decided that Izzy was worth a look.  I got in touch with her owner and met them later that afternoon. Izzy’s owner was looking for a new home for her because the house was getting to crowded, 2 other big dogs, a son and daughter-in-law, and a grandkid.  Izzy had run away a couple days before and was picked up by the cops, so that was the last straw for her.

When we met Izzy we knew right away that she was a keeper.  She was a very sweet and laid back dog.  We took her for a short walk and played around a little bit. We told her owner that we wanted Izzy and her owner said we could have her without cost.  She said she knew we would be good parents for Izzy.  A sweet dog for free is tough to beat.

So here we are about 2 weeks into dog ownership.  It has been great so far.  Izzy is about as sweet as dogs come.  She is just starting to trust us.  We tried to kennel her up at night the first couple nights, but after 4 years of sleeping in a bed with her owner Izzy wasn’t having it.  We then reached a compromise with her and brought her dog bed into our room at night, she relented and decided that would have to do.  We have one big rule with Izzy, no furniture unless it’s her dog bed, or the bench next to the garage door.  Izzy gives us the sad puppy eyes when we sit on the couches and don’t let her up.  I tell her that she is lucky to enjoy what she has and that most dogs get eaten instead of played with.  Ok, that last part isn’t true, I don’t tell her that, but she is learning our system.

Overall she is a great dog and we look forward to many adventures with her.

I’ve been working at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church for almost 4 years now.  A brief review:

• The first two years sucked.
• The third year started to get better.
• This past year hasn’t been too bad.

The most difficult thing about my job is that it isn’t one job, it’s more like 1 full time job with 2 part time jobs crammed in it’s butthole with the addition of a night and weekend part time job.  I am the webmaster for all POP websites, which is a full time job, and when any video project comes along, that’s my thing too. I also assist in technology set ups for meetings/conferences. And also work worship tech for all worship services/rehersals.  To break it down somewhat simpler, I have 2 separate teams I am accountable to, Media Arts (web, video, A/V technology) and Worship Arts (technical support for worship).

I am a pretty intuitive guy so I quickly understand and get how machines/technology/processes work, and I am able to do each one of these roles pretty effectively.  Where I struggle is in being able to manage every one of these jobs simultaneously for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks out of the year. Another twist in my employment is complex accountability structures.  I have a supervisor who I directly report to, however she serves in only one facet of my job (Media Arts) I also have another supervisor who oversees all of worship arts.  If I bust my balls and just nail something in my job, everything goes to plan. If I were to say, screw up in my worship arts job, not only do I have to have to work it out with the worship arts director but I have to work it out with my media arts director.  It’s a very “Office Space” type of problem:

Peter Gibbons: Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime, so where’s the motivation? And here’s another thing, I have eight different bosses right now.

Bob Porter: Eight?

Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

With my annual review coming up in the next few weeks I had a meeting with my supervisor last week to begin planning goals for the 2010-2011 year.  She really hit it home to me that she wanted me to do these on my own and to have them influenced by my passions. After about a week thinking about these things, and one very frustrating clusterfuck day, I started to get a good idea of what I hoped to accomplish in my 5th year at POP.  I had my follow up goal meeting with her the other day and I took a gamble going into it.  In my goals I laid out that I wanted to transition out of worship arts in the next 3 months so I could fully focus on media arts.  She saw where I was coming from and thought I did a good job thinking it through, but stated that there really isn’t any money to accomplish this right now.

We do have some options though, one is to possibly take a reduction in hours to free up funds to fill the worship tech role I would be leaving.  Another is to completely transition out of Prince of Peace and find a new job. This would allow them to figure out a new team structure for both media arts and worship arts.  My basic argument and catalyst for making this transition is that if I died tomorrow they wouldn’t look to hire someone to fill all these roles, they would find a worship tech person and one or possibly two media arts people.

I don’t know what this all will bring about in the next couple weeks or months, but I am ready for change.  I am not one to blindly believe that God has a super specific plan for my life, but I do believe that God has given me specific gifts and perspectives.  I think God is calling me to use these to start telling a new story with my life. I’ve never heard God tell me that my life would be easy either, but I’ve heard God tell me that He is with me till the end.

I have to give kudos to my family and friends who have heard me whine about this stuff for awhile now, and also my wife who has been amazingly supportive of this.  She still digs me too, so that’s good.

I’ll keep you updated as more unfolds.

Starting today (June 1, 2010) and ending a year from now (May 31, 2011) I will ride 1000 miles on my bike.

It boils down to about 3 miles a day, or 20 miles a week. It’s not much more than what I currently do, but at least I have a nice whole number to pedal to.

In the winter months I ride the bike at the gym, which thankfully tracks my mileage to an online site. Love it.

Here’s to cycling, beer, and thunder thighs.

I saw this clip on YouTube awhile back and remembered that I almost shat myself because I laughed so hard.  I kinda forgot about it until I saw a trailer for this documentary about the dude in the outtakes.  I just might have to see this film.

4 Reasons I love this video:

1. I think swearing is hilarious
2. I swear way to fucking much
3. The Winnebago was created in the town I went to college at, Forest City, Iowa.
4. All of the beautiful wooded area backgrounds they shot this in were at Pilot Knob State Park, located a few miles east of Forest City.  I built a fort in the woods there with Joneron Aneron.

The Original “Winnebago Man” Outtake Video

The Winnebago Man Trailer

Here’s one way to solve the energy, climate change, and health care debates, go with me on this…

In the future we should ride our bicycles for transportation instead of using combustion engine vehicles.

1. We won’t have to drill oil anymore (or almost next to nothing), which means no destruction of any ecosystem (i.e. BP Gulf of Mejico clusterfuck)
2. It will also drastically cut down on our greenhouse gas output
3. It will keep our collective fat ass in shape, which means reduced health care need…lower healthcare cost…etc.

Yeah, it’s a little too simple and a lot Pollyanna, and of course it raises up a lot of questions, but in the words of the great Walter Sobchak, “Am I Wrong?!!”

Here are some great options:

Pantsless Rider

Cheerio

80's Style

Cartoon Leper

It may be somewhat oversimplified and I don’t think the church is an evil empire (well not for a few centuries now anyway) but he brings up many many good points about the strange things we do as Christians.  It makes me think not only about the need to repent as individuals but also as a community, as the entire body of Christ.

The old saying comes to mind that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”. You could tie that quote into anything you think is stupid, but are we as the body bringing heaven to earth?  Making God’s Dream/Kingdom/Dance a reality?

It’s a tough pill to swallow but I think these are things to ponder…especially when I hold the mirror to my life.

Stepehen Hawking: FU E.T. (Yahoo article)

I read this article today and it has made me think a little more about my boyhood fantasy of meeting extraterrestrials.

Stepehen Hawking makes the case that if aliens found out about us and/or came to earth, that they would use up our resources and probably wipe us out (ala manifest destiny type shenanigans).  They would be hostile.  Maybe Steve-o watched Avatar and figured aliens have corporations too and would harvest unobtanium here on earth and take it back to their home planet.

I still think that communicating with intelligent life out there would be awesome.  If they show up and really are dickheads we’ll just have to get Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith to fly one of their smaller ships into the mother ship, download a trojan virus into their network to disable their shields, while simultaneously having president Bill Pullman lead some fighter jets to blow up their ships here on earth.  Cominayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeha!