Spring, I greet you with open arms!
It’s been a long winter and the past couple evenings after work have been absolutely GLORIOUS. So I’ve tried to take full advantage. Grilled up some brats last night and got the Toronado all waxed up. Andrea got her oil changed (by herself as always!) and we were going to rotate her tires, but my air hose blew out and I didn’t feel like ACTUALLY wrenching the lugnuts off. =P
Also took the time to finally go introduce myself to our new neighbor behind us. The old lady moved out a couple months back and in that time the house has just sat empty. To be completely honest I had been dreading who would move in back there. The old lady was nice because you know she wasn’t going to be bothering us. As it turns out a young gal about Andrea’s and my age moved in. Not sure if she’s going to the college here or what. Didn’t want to dive into the life stories on our first conversation. But she seems alright. Fairly shy, which makes for a good neighbor I suppose!
Tonight I cruised around a little bit with the windows down. Then just hung out with Andrea a bit before she headed off to bowl. Now I’m here blogging enjoying a frosty brew and wondering what happens next. If it’s nothing, I’m fine with that!
Ready to retreat, more every day.
Note: I started writing this blog almost a week ago and finally finished it today… timeframes referenced probably aren’t consistant!
So this morning I got up at 6am with my alarm clock, despite staying up until almost midnite last night. I kicked on the coffee and decided I’d do a little web surfing to start the day. Then I did something I shouldn’t have. I kicked on the Google News page.
With all the commotion going on about this health care reform, I foolishly took up an interest in its outcome. I watched the final stages unfold much as one would watch the end of a match between the worlds finest chess players. I get the basics of the game, but the moves are completely above my head and happening so quickly that it’s easy to see how people can feel that stuff like this is just being rammed through. Every move is so carefully calculated, planned, and countless unseen hands are pulling the strings.
I had initially had the intention that I was going to find out what the Health Care bill really meant, form my own opinion and take side on the issue. Of course nobody was talking about this story. It was about the “Story within the story”. Some jackball yelling “Baby Killer”, or isolated cases (yes yes, I realize of real people) from both sides that are supposed to convince me one way or another to be for or against the broad sweeping legislation that apparently all of a sudden has a deadline.
What further discouraged my already misplaced faith in the populous were the comments section in all of these news stories. After coming up dry on the real information I really wanted, I continue to read heated purely emotional discussions between ignorant people that have no intention of discussion. They’d just rather have the opposing argument eliminated. I guess it was disappointing because it was all so predictable.
1 John 2:15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
There are SO many struggles I face every day, trying to be more like Christ. But the passage above is certainly one of the least difficult! What a lot of folks see as interesting, entertaining, or desirable– All too often I see them as mundane, predictable, and empty. Six hundred shows on TV about nurses and doctors? Oh yay, a new greener car! TV Guy says: “Here’s something you didn’t know exsisted until just now but you HAVE TO HAVE IT!”
The term “rat race” seems all to literal. Running a maze to get some piece of cheese, only when you get the cheese you realize the maze continues for more bigger cheeze. Then you look around and realize everyone elses cheeze is bigger and tastier than yours… so you keep running. If only everybody knew that the race was voluntary. I mean I don’t try to be different for different’s sake, I just try to be comfortable in every situation… perhaps at times making the people around me somewhat uncomfortable, hehe.
Jenn blogged about Facebook today. It made me realize how far from the center I am. Not to say Jenn isn’t a unique person, far from it. But Facebook is top dead center on what is popular in today’s culture, and I really couldn’t have less to do with it. I’ve never been too social. Infact even back in school I always preferred my small group of good friends over being the popular one, or center of attention. So in that respect Facebook is a little overwhelming for me. I’m sure there’s plenty of others just like me out there, but we’re the weird ones.
So I’ve once again swore off Google News, and really the media in general in most respects. I’ll stick to message boards and a few niche websites. And if I just so happen to find out some major earth shattering event two days after it happened via the IGN Boards, so be it… It wouldn’t be the first time!
03.18.10I haven’t seen Avatar yet.
...or have I?
Time Change still kicking my butt.
Okay, maybe I really am getting old. But I don’t ever remember having this much difficulty adjusting to the time change. First it’s been difficult to get myself to go to bed and fall asleep on my old schedule. I find myself returning to my old ways of looking up at the clock and thinking “I really need to get to sleep” even though I’m not the least bit tired. Heck even contemplated an all-nighter the other night just because it was midnite and I wasn’t tired. Haven’t thought about those since I was working nights at KJCK!
Then when I do get to sleep, by golly it’s everything to drag my butt out of bed in the morning. Woke up at 7:42 am today to take a shower and be to work by 8:00. I didn’t quite make it… but I was close enough. Hehe.
It’s just gonna be one of those things I have to force myself to do I think. Make sure the coffee is ready to go to tempt me beyond the bedroom and maybe have Andrea hide my alarm clock so I have to search for it to turn it off in the morning! One way or another, I’m going to be up in time to have me a bacon sandwich for breakfast tomorrow!
I’m back!
Many apologies for my serious lack of posting as of late. I’m just rebounding from being as sick as I can remember for quite some time.
The worst part about being sick, is that when you are sick, it is impossibly difficult to remember what it felt like to be well, normal, and just relaxed. I had a cold and fever for two days that left every muscle in my body tense and sore, and once that went away a pounding three day headache utterly sucked my will to do anything but bury myself in covers and wait for it to be over.
In the meantime there were birthday parties to attend, and work that had to be done. Calling in on Monday is one thing, but on a Friday the options are either “spend all day on the phone trying to explain how to do what it is you do to the people that just know you ‘take care of it’.” Or just go get it done and keep everything as low key as possible. So Friday I called and said I was feeling terrible but I was going to come in a bit late. I knocked out everything that was absolutely required, then retreated home for a breif rest before heading down to Wichita for a Nephew’s birthday party. The entire stretch was exhausting.
So now it feels like light is finally returning to my world and I can resume whatever boring and mundane goals I had before my brush with despair. I try to take a little something from every experience, and I think from this one I can truly be thankful for the health that I have, and the fact that I am RARELY ever really sick like that. I feel like I can be a little less than understanding of those who live with constant pain because I’m well so much of the time, but I really am thankful for what I have, because that constant discomfort really effects your attitude in a big way, at least it did for me. Perhaps I’m just a baby.
Yup, I guess it’s official. I’m an old man.
For those unfamiliar with the Dropkick Murphy’s, here’s a video of their latest song:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-64CaD8GXw]
We went to Kansas City over the weekend with Andrea’s sister Trina and her husband Jason. Had a good time roaming around, but the main reason we went up there was to see the band. It was at the Beaumont Club which was basically just a giant room with a dancefloor, a bar, and a stage. We showed up shortly before the first band went on. I was optimistic about the experience because while there were quite a few people there you still had room to move around a bit.
The first band was Larry and His Flask. To be honest I think I enjoyed them even more than Dropkick. Maybe it was the crazy dude jumping around stage with the bass violin, or just the fact that we hadn’t been smothered by people yet. But either way I thought their music was very different and cool. The second band was just a bunch of screaming. And by the time the Murphy’s took the stage it was so packed in there I was sticking my head up, not so much as to see the band, as I was to get a gulp of fresh air.
Don’t get me wrong, it was still a good time and I’m very glad we went. But given the choice I’d actually prefer experiencing my live music in a place where I can sit down, listen to the band, and perhaps even enjoy a cool beverage. And this I why I say, apparently I’m already a grumpy old man.