church hop

Today was probably our family's last time attending as members of the church that we've gone for 23 years. My emotions about this are not easy to articulate.

We're not leaving because of any hurt or any issues that we have with church leadership. I actually really like the pastor, who will be celebrating his first year there in a couple of weeks. However, we're doing a trial move for NJ and CD.

Both of the kids have had anxiety at the church since before our new pastor started, each for their own reason. Much of NJ's anxiety stems from the fact that he understands that he's different from most of the rest of the youth, and he had a meltdown a while back that he's embarrassed about. There's a church in town that has a program during Sunday morning service that is targeted to teens and young adults with special needs. NJ has been going to their special needs youth group meetings on Wednesdays, and has done well there. So, we're going to attend that church for a bit to see how well the kids do in that setting.

There are only a few reasons that I would be okay with switching churches. While I'm not always the best at being a friend to everyone in church, I do believe that we should strive for this to be like a family. Over the past few weeks as I've been letting people know that we're leaving I've been feeling like I'm abandoning folks.

I explained our situation to our pastor, and to his credit he has been extremely supportive of this move. I know that this has to be hard to see congregants go elsewhere, regardless of the reason. I wish I knew how to repay this kindness.

We'll be visiting family over Labor Day, and so the week after that we'll be doing something as a family that I haven't done in more than half of my lifetime and visit a church with the potential of making it our new church home. It's my hope that whether this is the right move becomes obvious shortly.

social needs

My pastor has gotten much of his education in Psychology and Counseling, so has taught a few times that there are six dimensions under which people's needs can be defined.  Those are spiritual, emotional, social, sexual, family, and financial.  I don't know if this is based on any real research, but it is indeed a convenient way of categorizing needs.


There are times that I feel like most of my needs are atypical.  I don't know what really counts as typical or atypical, though.  A great example, and most of what has been on my mind, are social needs.  I just seem to have different social drives than many other people I speak with.

While it has happened, I have very rarely in my life experienced a need to be out among people.  Usually when it has that is because I have been home alone for more than a day.  When I was fourteen living with my family at my grandparents' house I remember wanting to get out to social events, but that was more an issue of circumstance than a reflection of a strong social need.

I do have a strong social need, but that is for people I can have in-depth and analytical conversations.  To do something like this, though, requires a connection.

Something I have noticed is that I can get standoffish to people I detect have strong social needs.  When people start talking about wanting to get together on the spur of the moment, and I don't already have a strong connection with them, my gut reaction is to view them as stealing my precious time resource without paying me something I can use.  I feel overwhelmed very quickly around those sorts of people.

This is a problem because I am starting to understand that to maintain friendships you have a good connection with you need to care about others' needs as well.  I can understand those characters who get older and shut in and don't want to interact with others because that is one of my tendencies.  It's easy to think in the short term that I should only do things that directly align with my needs, but then eighty-year-old me will have few close friendships.

ten years

A couple of weeks ago was the ten year anniversary for this blog.  When I look at life as it was for me then and now I don't know if I am more surprised by the things that have changed or the things that have stayed the same.

Most of the good friends with whom I created these blogs have moved, though I believe that some of those plans were already in the works when the blogs were started.  We lost our good friend Forrest along the way, as well as my co-worker at the time, T-Bop.  We aren't guaranteed tomorrow, and I did not properly understand that ten years ago.

The things I am the most embarrassed about from my former days are the issues I was apparently working through and the fact that I had a far lesser grasp on essential doctrines than I thought I did.

Regarding issues, everyone has them but they're more obvious for some than others.  I have made significant improvements over the last ten years, and I'm sure that's partially just part of the process of aging.  There are more things I'm confident that I understand, I care somewhat less what people think, and I have a better grasp on my own personal quirks than I did before.  Life can be a positive journey in that respect.  I still need to mellow out quite a bit, though.

Regarding doctrine, I'll just say I'm a bit mortified. Ten years ago I was as well-read in the Bible as a twenty-five-year-old can be, but I lacked a depth of understanding.  With every discovery I make in study I gain new embarrassment regarding things I used to say.  Some positions I have held in my doctrinal journey have been borderline heretical, and so I have had to correct and repent of some erroneous positions.  You live and learn, but this is serious stuff.

I have always been the sort to stick around in one place, so I still work in the same job but at a higher title. This time ten years ago I was in the process of deciding if that was really the path I wanted to take.  When I committed to getting my MBA ten years ago, that was a commitment to stay in this job for a long while because I was getting tuition assistance.  I will confess that I had some serious questions about the wisdom of that path ten years ago, though I believe I took the best route forward.  That, of course, comes from someone who values consistency, so staying at the same place for ten years naturally feels best.

The biggest difference in my life from ten years ago, though, are that Golden and I now have NJ and CH in our lives.  I cannot fathom too many things that changes the nature and priorities of your life as having kids, and there's plenty of positive and negative that can be said about it.  We love ours, though, and are so proud of the progress they have made in school, church, and elsewhere.

Finally, this year Golden and I celebrate our fifteenth anniversary.  When I started the blog we were looking at five years together, and that seemed impossibly long.  It doesn't feel like fifteen is remotely possible.  Part of that is because I still feel like we are learning more about each other each day.  She is aging far, far better than I am, and I am fortunate to have her.  One thing that you get out of fifteen years of marriage is perspective on the things that make a good or bad spouse.  I have a good wife.

I hope to be able to keep this up for another ten years.  Obviously, I do not post like I used to.  Life responsibilities guarantee that.  That does not mean that I do not appreciate having this outlet, though.  I hope all who still read this get some enjoyment out of it.

the real facebook temptation

Facebook is a constant siren.  Not just to check everyone's statuses, though that is tempting too.  No, Facebook constantly taunts me to jump into debates that will ultimately be meaningless.

It comes at me from all angles.  I see absurdities in all sorts of bold positions that people take, but my fatal flaw is that I don't usually see the absurdities in my own positions.  "Of course that's a ludicrous position to take," I think as I start whipping out a brilliantly witty remark at my friend's (or worse, a friend of my friend's) expense.  Then, I usually (and thankfully) realize that maybe I shouldn't comment like that.  At first it's usually out of concern for the obvious faux pas, but then it starts impossibly sinking in that maybe I'm also somewhat wrong.  Maybe my comment isn't as bulletproof as I am imagining it to be, impossible as it seems right now.

Many times I have dialed myself back in time to avoid being, if only temporarily, yet one more idiot shouting an opinion on Facebook.^*  While I do not always feel in my gut it is the right decision at the time I always feel that it was a day or two later.  Sometimes with my bolder friends I don't dial myself back as much as I should.  The only times that I don't feel bad about that later are when I was correcting obvious and egregious doctrinal errors from a proclaiming Christian.  That caveat scenario doesn't happen too often.

So, why is that temptation always there?  I know better.  I just don't know better in the moment.

^* I'll always be an idiot shouting an opinion here. 

milestones

Apart from this past week being the 237^th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence it also marks two other anniversaries, one joyous and one sad.  I am amazed that at what I still consider a young age there are so many milestones that I notice every year of significant things that happened.  Births, deaths, weddings, and all sorts of other things.  Every part of the calendar beckons to memories that are not all of that long-past.

This makes me wonder what milestones are ahead.  Are they largely going to be good?  How difficult will the bad ones be, and who will feel the brunt of the pain?  Is there something that I should be doing at this stage of life to appreciate what I have or to appropriately set up the good milestones?

remembering forrest

There are two dangers in my posting a memory about Forrest.  The first danger is that it will be all about me, which is something he would absolutely call me on if he were still here.  The second danger is that I gush.  He'd call me on that too.

As I have noted, my friend Forrest went to be with God a couple of weeks ago.  While his illness had a sense of inevitability about it, as he had a form of cancer that very few people survive more than half a year, it has only hit home with me now that he is gone.

Seven years ago, Forrest utilized his influence encouraged a group of friends to start blogs to express ourselves and stay connected.  That is how this blog originated.  He moved on to other forms of expression as the years went on, including a successful and prolific level of painting.  Even without him being here directly, though, his influence remained with me and the others who continued to write and interact.

Probably due to my selfish nature most of my friendships are structured in ways that the relationship can meet some specific social need I have.  For example, I have some friendships with people I can laugh about specific things, I have some friendships with people with whom I can discuss specific topics, and I have some friendships with people who I can share specific experiences.  While I only saw Forrest once every few weeks over the last two or three years, I am realizing now how significant he had become in my social world.  I have already had several instances where I thought that some specific thing would be great to discuss with Forrest, then remembered that is not a possibility.

The aspect of Forrest's character or personality that I appreciated most was how incredibly easy it was to be honest around him.  We could be open, straightforward, and sometimes blunt with each other in our discussions.  It was often to a fault.  Among our group of friends who met at Homer's Coffeehouse I could discuss topics and opinions that I would not bring up in many other contexts.  That was largely due to the atmosphere that Forrest brought to the group.

Forrest was a great friend who I was very fortunate to get to connect with.  His memory and influence will always be with me, and he will always be missed.

If I miss him some, I know that his family misses him a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more.  I can only pray that God will provide each of them peace through the grief.  Please remember them in your prayers.

cross to bear

A while back another mother of one of NJ's preschool classmates told Golden that she did not know if she could handle a situation we were dealing with regarding NJ at the time as a compliment to her patience.  Within a couple of months we received word that that mother had to deal with her son having a medical situation far, far worse than we have dealt with for either of our kids yet.

Unless he or she had a traumatic childhood, I do not think the typical person realizes the severity of the challenges that most people have to face in life until they are no longer considered a young adult.  Everyone has something, and that something is usually huge.  I feel like almost every family I know has some issue that I do not know how I would deal with.  Whether it is serious illnesses/death, miscarriages, affairs, divorces, major financial hardships, perpetual unemployment, mental/emotional instability, or simply rebellious children, almost no one is immune.  It also seems like all of this bad stuff is from recent years.

I know that a lot of bad stuff happened to people I knew when I was a kid, but a lot of that stuff is usually shielded from kids.  As an example, it may sound uncaring but when you hear about an adult in the hospital as a youth it does not sound unexpected.  You don't get the morbid details of the complications that person goes through, and it rarely directly impacts you.  Older people end up in hospitals, and you don't have an appreciation for someone in their thirties or forties being relatively young.  It's simply another name brought up for a prayer request.  That changes as an adult when forty isn't old any more and I am more closely acquainted with those who are sick.

To be fair, there are difficulties that Golden and I face.  In a vacuum they often seem serious, but when I compare to others, we do not have it that bad.  A lot of what we do face has to do with being parents of two energetic kids, so those difficulties even frequently have benefits that far outweigh them.

Given how poorly I have handled the curve balls that life has thrown me, I have some doubts about how I would handle a more serious hardship.  My crosses seem horrible until I see some of what others have to tolerate.  God, give them strength.

please pray

My friend Forest, whom about half my readers know, needs your prayers.  He has a very serious form of cancer and direct intervention from God is currently his hope, and unfortunately his only hope.  Please also pray for his family as well, as they need strength and peace as much as Forest does.

I am not abandoning the blog, and will likely put something up in the very near future.  I simply have not been in the mood to compose something, as everything I have sat down to type has felt trite in comparison.  Not to fear, though, my standards will go down to my normal level shortly and I will post again.

Update (7/6/2012):

Forest passed away yesterday.  Please remember his family in your prayers.

boundaries

I frankly don't know precisely where boundaries should be drawn in my life.  I never have.  In college I became overly active in classwork, student government, work, and maintaining a relationship with Golden and nearly burned out mid-way through my third semester.  A few times in my adult life I have swung the opposite direction and purposefully shut down nearly all offers for social activities beyond what was absolutely necessary.

I'm somehow guarded and over-sharing at the same time in my friendships.  In my close relationships I don't usually know what reasonable and unreasonable expectations are.  Do I expect too much or too little?  Do I sacrifice too much or too little?  Again, I think it's paradoxically both, but I usually cannot identify the specifics of what needs to change.

In social situations I frequently miss social cues, though I also notice people who miss them much more than I do.  Some people seem to be able to feel out others in a way that I can only dream.  Other people seem to miss what I think are obvious signs that whatever they are doing violates whatever the local social mores are.

The thing is, the more I think about this, the more I think this describes most people.  There is definitely a small group of people who seem to get where all of the social and personal boundaries are or should be, and there is a small group of  people who have no clue.  In the middle, though, I think everyone relies on others' reactions to figure out the grey areas.  What happens, though, when the people we use for reference have it wrong?

the more i seek you

The more I seek you
The more I find you
The more I find you
The more I love you

I want to sit at your feet
Drink from the cup in your hand
Lay back against you and breathe
Feel your heart beat

This love is so deep
It's more than I can stand
I melt in your peace
It's overwhelming- Zach Neese ("The More I Seek You")

I have only twice heard the song with the lyrics above. The first time was in a church service several months back, and when I got home I had to email a few friends to ask them if they were as uncomfortable with the lyrics as I am. The second time was this past Sunday, again in a church service. Simply put, I can't sing the song. If I sing it it sounds like I'm singing to my boyfriend. Since I am a straight man that is a problem. One could argue that if I were a straight woman and felt the same way that would be a problem as well.

I discussed this with a few other friends tonight, and one important point that came up in the discussion is that without knowing that this is supposed to be a worship song most people would conclude that this was a slightly erotic love song. Giving the song context might make it a little better, but my mind simply cannot properly go from the physical relationship that the words imply to true worship.

The point of this post is not really to whine about the song, however, but to pose a few questions to the men and to the women who read this blog. Please note that I am asking because I am trying to understand how a song like this could get past the censors, as it were.

To the women, if you sang these lyrics in a worship service would it be worshipful as to God as God, or would it be worshipful to God as a significant other, or perhaps something else? Do you have any problems with seeing God as a significant other (like a boyfriend or a husband)? Do you find the lyrics above imply a physical or romantic relationship? If you were in a church service and heard that song would it occur to you that a man would be uncomfortable with the song?

To the men, do you agree with me or do you feel like this is not structured to be a romantic song? Could you sing it as a worshipful rather than a romantic song? Are there other songs that make you uncomfortable for the same reason I am uncomfortable with this song?

I am also open to input beyond these questions. Golden made an excellent point that she could sing the song from the perspective of a child/parent relationship with God. I really can see that, though I still can't shake the romantic relationship idea strong enough to sing it in that way. If anyone else has any other insights I would love to hear them.

friendship alarm

This is very quick and to the point. For multiple reasons I have realized recently that I am not all that great at reading people. I'll spare the details, but if you care to know just ask. This problem is something that I am going to need to work on going forward, but because I know that I will work on it. All of that said, I do know when someone is a good match for friendship with me specifically.

Reading people is one thing, but I do have an internal alarm that goes off around certain people that makes me believe I wouldn't be able to be very good friends with them. I'd bet that pretty much everyone has that alarm. For me, that alarm mostly has to do with how genuine you are and how willing you are to accept me for who I really am. My friendship is really not that difficult to get, but you may have trouble getting my time. What is your alarm? How hard or easy is it for any random person to become your friend?

this side of the fence

As the old adage, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," indicates, it is only natural to believe that other people have it better. I don't think things are quite so simple, though. I think that, while most people believe the grass is greener elsewhere consciously, they are so attached to their life that they wouldn't trade it for the apparently greener grass of someone else's life.

I started thinking about this because of fantasy football. In one of my leagues the rules are configured to encourage trading players before the season starts. Even though the rules are set this way so that a fair trade would benefit everyone involved, there are hardly ever more than two or three trades. This is because most people overvalue the players that they have and this causes them to be unable to set terms that someone else in the league is able to agree to.

I have been on both sides of the metaphorical fence at different times in my life. I have been the person who saw someone else who appeared fortunate in different areas of life and thought that it would be cool to be in that person's shoes. I am aware of a few situations where people were jealous of me due to something that they thought made my life better or easier. The obvious response to this jealousy is that the jealous person doesn't know what problems the person on the other side of the fence has to deal with. That response is not really the point of this post, though.

Like a person who is unwilling to trade a mediocre fantasy football player away because he or she overvalues that player, I think that most people would choose the hardships of their own lives rather than those of others if they were really actually given a choice. I am not saying that someone who has lost a child or a spouse wouldn't want them back. There are certainly exceptions and this is not a hard and fast rule. I am saying, though, that most people take ownership of the things in their lives and that causes those things to become a part of who they are. For example, if I were to trade my hardships for someone else's that would be the equivalent of giving up a large part of who I am.

One of my Facebook friends a while back lamented about how hard it is to be a nice guy. I agree. Life is seriously stacked against the nice guys and in favor of the inconsiderate jerks, but the reason that he is a nice guy is that at least on some level because he gets value in it. Not to negate the spiritual reasoning for being nice but, at a minimum, a significant part of what keeps him from being a selfish jerk is that it would be denying part of what his true self is, and that would be more painful than dealing with the drawbacks of being nice.

So, if you look at someone else's burden green with envy about how easy they have it, you have to ask would you really lose what identifies you as you to make your life a little easier if you actually had the choice. Could you really toss your hardships for someone else's? Even though I am not fond of the troubles I have had in my life, I don't think that I would.

shovel off

I have been thinking about this for a while, and this is the first good opportunity that I have had.

Maybe a month ago I was in the car with a coworker, who is also a good friend, as he stopped by his house to pick something up. When we approached his house he commented about how annoying it was to have a house that faces the north. I did not get it at first, so he pointed out that all of the houses on one side of the street had snow in the driveway and all of the houses on the other side of the street did not. The shade from the houses with driveways on the north kept the snow from melting as fast as the snow on the other side of the street. This might be a commonly known pitfall of owning a house that faces to the north, but I had not contemplated it seriously until now.

One thing that I have loved about living in the Kansas City area is that snows don't often stick for long. In other places I have lived, such as Michigan and South Dakota, a snow could be expected to stick for weeks or months on end before they melted away. This is the sixth winter we have been in our house, and I have probably shoveled the driveway fewer than five times in that stretch. Most of those times when I went to the trouble have been because we were going to have company and I did not want them to have to walk through the snow. Otherwise, it has just rarely seemed worth the effort if I have known that the snow would melt to a manageable level within a day or two.

I now know that it is possible that my experience may not be identical to my neighbors across the street. This was something I have considered today, since I had to hurriedly brush a couple of inches of snow off my car this morning. It is a bother to have to clear off my car, but the situation could have been worse. I could have to actually shovel my driveway at some point as well.

holiday recap

It feels like forever since I last posted something. A part of me wants to believe that someone else besides me has felt some withdrawal from my lack of posts over the last two weeks.

I will restart my normal posting schedule on Monday. Until then, here is a recap of the last two weeks.

• Golden and I visited her family and my family for Christmas. As I noted, NJ did well in the car. He got very fussy and stayed that way when we entered Missouri near St. Louis, though, so it did not end as well as it started.
• I did do well in Christmas presents, but I am always leery to go into too much detail about presents because I will probably not evenly express appreciation for my gifts.
• NJ got a lot of gifts, so now we are starting to run out of places to put his toys.
• We celebrated the new year with my parents, which was kind of funny because neither of them stayed up until midnight. Golden made it with the assistance of a short nap beforehand.
• I shipped my laptop in to get it fixed at the end of the trip, so that is the real withdrawal I am experiencing right now. I have rediscovered books and magazines in the last week.
• Maybe the thing that I am most happy about is that we missed a lot of the bad weather that Kansas City got while we were gone. Seeing news reports of the Kansas City airport from Pittsburgh made me happy I wasn't in the area.
• We visited Dash and T on the way through Indiana. It was nice getting to see them and to get the grand tour of their house. I also always like the opportunity to play board and card games.
• I will be trying to fit a small renovation project into the schedule before classes start again. This could get interesting, since it is not my forte.

To reiterate, remember to start checking the site again beginning on Monday, as I will be getting back to the old schedule.

the shallow end

This past week I came across a story about a wannabe gold digger more than one news source. There is a little doubt as to whether both postings are real, but they are both believed to be likely be serious posts.

In a nutshell, a woman posted on Craig's List asking for advice on how to land a husband making $500 thousand a year, because she has only been able to date guys making in the $200 thousand range. She believes that she is beautiful and cultured enough to land a better guy, so what is she doing wrong? Someone claiming to match the woman's qualifications then responded with a biting explanation of why she may not be having much success.

If there is something I am judgmental about, it is regarding shallowness. I used to be even worse than I am right now. In case it is not already painfully obvious, I hate to see people make decisions about others' value based on looks, popularity, wealth, and anything of that nature. The problem for me, though, is where should the line be drawn.

What qualifies as shallowness? The definition that I used to follow was that shallowness is making a decision about whether I want to have a relationship (friendship or otherwise) based on something that that person either has no control over or that results from that person being fake. Now, I don't hate that definition, but I don't think it is perfect, either.

Most of the time when I hear shallowness mentioned, it is in reference to appearance, money, or social position. Are these things inherently shallow, though? For example, I used to think that plastic surgery was incredibly shallow in all circumstances. I now think that if others judge based on appearance, maybe the surgery is to address others' shallowness rather the shallowness of the person having the surgery. Or at a less extreme level, I don't think it is naturally shallow for someone to use makeup, and I think most people agree with that.

I do think that what society deems as shallow and not shallow is often inaccurate. However, I don't always have a good reason for why I think that something is shallow in comparison to something else that I do not think is shallow.

So, this is another one of those posts where I ask for reader opinions. What is shallow and what isn't shallow? Is there a line to cross or is there gray area?

fake

Last night Golden and I watched John Tucker Must Die. While I did have a tiny bit of doubt about the flick, the movie was actually as good as I expected. It is very similar to Mean Girls with the exception that the villain is a player rather than a queen bee. To be honest, I was the one who wanted to see it. This may surprise some people, but I expected this to be more of a thinker than I think most other people expected it to be. Since both Golden and I liked the movie I was not totally off base.

Both movies have one major theme that I greatly appreciate. The main character in each film enters school as a nobody and is eventually catapulted into popularity through some evil scheme to destroy someone else. In the end of both flicks the main character learns that popularity is empty if it is attained through being fake, and that it is easy to become the person that you originally hated.

I think that most people agree that being yourself is a good thing and being fake is a bad thing, but I wonder if people only think that at the extremes. Is letting fashion dictate what you wear so that you don't stick out like a sore thumb being fake? Is rooting for the home team to fit in not being yourself? Is fixing up your house or car to impress others wrong? Is changing some of your interests to match those of your social group wrong? Are the rules different if these things are done by an adult, an adolescent, or a child?

I am deeply concerned about when NJ and any siblings he may have in the future (no, Golden is not pregnant) are old enough to crave acceptance from peers. It is inevitable. God made people that way. How much leeway should I provide in letting my children express themselves, though, when they are really just expressing what is popular in their social context? I wish I knew.

So, even though it appears on the surface that I just watched another dumb teen movie, I think there is a lot to learn from what I saw. For one, I learned that John Tucker doesn't have to die just yet. He is only able to do wrong because his victims allow him through their own selfishness.

summer trip: the end

Miles total: 2986

Golden read through my posts about the trip for the first time tonight. One thing that she noted was that I probably wrote too much. I am going to try to keep this to a few observations. There are no pictures because I did not have the camera easily available to me very much.

When we entered Indiana the first thing I saw were four or five huge signs for Tom Raper RVs and Home Sales. Am I the only person who thinks a different company name would work better? It is possible that the guy's name is an advantage because people remember it.

We saw Dash and T for supper in Terre Haute and a walk around the local mall. It was a great diversion after spending seven hours on the road.

As I was driving through Effingham, Illinois, I remembered a little too late that I wanted to snap a picture of the giant cross visible from the highway. The thing is huge, and I only started noticing it on trips in the past few years. I am not sure if this is because it was built a few years ago or if I was always asleep during this part of the trip in the past. A picture where you can get a sense of the cross' size can be found at this site.

NJ is healthy now, but he had some of his worst moments on the final day of the trip. I think the crazy schedule was getting to him. He was very pleasant to be around once we got him home, though.

So, to those who have kept up with the trip, I appreciate your patience. For those who haven't, you can start reading my posts again after today.

more polls

The whole blog poll thing on this site is still somewhat in flux. I liked the appearance of Bravenet, but it added a popup on my actual site instead of just in the link to view the results. That was unacceptable. I am currently using PollHost, but it is a definite aesthetic step down.

Pop or Soda
It's mostly split down the middle. There is not much more to say.

Seasons
I'm honestly surprised there weren't more answers for spring or summer. Those are at least my favorite times of the year. This is probably related to the hot/cold debate we had a couple of years ago when I found that more people preferred extreme cold to extreme heat.

Keep in touch
Almost everyone else agrees with me. I am shocked at the people who actually can stay in touch over the long term. I guess I need to be more committed in my friendships.

Making Contact
Hardly anyone voted on this one. Regardless, the results were mixed.

contact

I must be about the most difficult person to contact in the world. I don't purposely set out to be difficult, but it tends to work that way.

I am horrible about answering my personal phone. If I am in the middle of something I'll often let my cell phone hit voicemail without even looking at the caller ID. This is under the assumption that I will check my voicemail shortly, but I rarely do. This isn't because I don't want to talk to anyone in particular, but rather that I don't like just stopping things midway through doing them.

Pity the person who tries to contact me via email. I have had countless email addresses in the past few years, and I don't keep a record of who has which email address. This means that when I retire an account I don't let anyone know about it. I have had at least one relative get upset at me that I didn't reply to an email sent to a dead address.

I even rotate the email addresses I frequently use due to variations in my Internet habits. An address that I use a lot one year may just be an infrequently checked spam collector the next year.

So, if you want to contact me and you want to be sure I get the message, you'll have to do that here. If you don't care that I get the message, send me an email.

t-bop

I'm not doing an actual post today because it doesn't seem right. I have just been informed that T-Bop, who used to be a regular on this site, has passed away.

Kim, if you see this, you can email me at shakedust at gmail dot com.