It’s Random

I have always been a man of prayer. For as long as I can remember, prayer has been a big part of my life. That’s not to say I don’t have a lot to learn in regards to prayer, but I pray constantly. About a week ago I read a post over at ChristianPF about the author’s prayer challenge to himself. For every waking hour of every day for seven days, he would pray for 5 minutes. The idea intrigued me. My comfort has always been praying when I felt the need to pray. Praying on demand (being called on to pray in a group for example) is tough for me, mostly stemming from being afraid of public speaking.  A friend made the comment about how awsome it would be if every Christian in the world would do this. I felt led to do this myself and  set my phone to beep on the hour every hour. For almost a week I struggled through praying on a schedule. I continued my prayer life as it was before this challenge also, so this wasn’t the only praying I was doing.

First I tried making a list of things to pray for each hour. That  worked out pretty well but I only did that for one day. After that I tried a few different things. For one day, I decided I would pray for the people nearest me when it came time, and another day I simply prayed for what I felt led to pray for.

In the end, I failed miserably with this. I began to resent the alarm going off and interrupting whatever I was doing at the time. I wanted to focus on God, but for some reason I was unable to do so completely. When it came time to pray I didn’t change anything about my surroundings, but stopped exactly where I was (well not when I was driving) and prayed. About a week or so after I first read about this challenge, I also got a pretty bad cold and that knocked me off all sorts of commitments and schedules. I still haven’t quite recovered, either from the cold or being thrown off schedule.

I read the followup article over at ChristianPF and looked back over my experience. I think a change of setting is important to success at this. Take a walk, grab a cup of coffee, or just lock yourself in the bathroom. I realize, even though I was beginning to resent the alarm and interruption, I was much closer to God during this period. Looking back I can see a drastic difference between those few days that week and the days since. Some of that can be attributed to the hectic pace of this week and general drabness of the week I was really sick, but mostly I believe it was being in continual prayer.

At this point, I do plan to try this again, but I’m going to wait a while first. I’m starting scripture memorization tomorrow and adding too many things at once is a very bad idea. We’ll see how it goes.

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Last week was rough for all my goals. April and I were both sick. Being sick and waking up early do not go well together. I also fell behind on entering receipts into Gnucash. It’s taken until today to get caught up on entering receipts. It’s not that I had that many, I just didn’t get around to it. I actually sat down with April tonight and showed her how to enter receipts on her computer. Dropbox is a wonderful thing.

Last night was our first discussion meeting. It went really well and I can’t wait for the next one. Since we’ve been reading for almost a month we had a lot to talk about. I’ve got a lot better understanding of things I didn’t even consider before and some things I had questions about. So far it’s a big success.

Beginning in February I’m going to start memorizing scripture. There are a few email/rss Bible memorization services and I might sign up for one of them. I think they’re mostly daily. Memorizing a different verse every day sounds daunting, but I think I can do it.

We found a daycare and Connor started this past Monday. I think it’s going well so far. I’m dropping him off in the morning which really affects my morning schedule. I’m having trouble getting adjusted to waking up early after being sick and the mornings are pretty quick paced now. I probably need to wake up earlier to have as much time reading and studying as I’d like.

April is getting back to work in the office some, but things aren’t going that great in that area either. Slowly things are getting back to normal though.

I’ve also been making an effort to eat healthier. So far that’s amounted to eating more fruits and vegetables. I haven’t cut anything out yet that I shouldn’t be eating, though I have been having either some fruit, or just skipping snacks entirely some days. Of course, right before I started this, I stocked up on snacks for work and none of them are remotely healthy.

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A note: This is a draft I found in my Wordpress install. It is from sometime in 2005. I am going to post it, mostly because it amuses me.

It seems Microsoft just doesn’t get it. This new patent they have indicates they want to add a way for companies to charge you extra if you skip commercials on your pvr. Now, I’m not a super genius or anything, but I’m pretty sure if I don’t want to watch commercials I don’t have to. So I have to say that I can’t imagine anybody signing up for a service that would charge them extra if they skipped commercials.

Sure, they would probably bill it as reducing costs for those who watch commercials, but its the same thing. Would they charge per minute? Per second? Per commercial? Are certain commercials more expensive because of their brand or the order they came in? What about multiple viewings? Could I record my shows, play them through when I’m not around and then play them a second time when I want to watch them and skip the commercials?

This is really quite ridiculous. I mean, before anybody heard of a pvr people were getting up to go to the bathroom or get snacks or flipping channels during commercials. What’s next? Televisions that lock you into a single channel for the duration of a program, thus forcing you to watch commercials? But that wouldn’t do because you could simply get up and walk away. I know! Maybe they’ll require all television sets to come equiped with cameras so they could sound an alarm alerting officials when you skip out during the commercials.

I admit it. For the most part, I don’t watch commercials. I have a Tivo and generally skip the commercials. But I also have to say that I stop fast forwarding and even rewind to see commercials sometimes. Then there’s also the first commercial after the show. I can see that spot becoming highly sought after, if it isn’t already. That commercial usually has 2 or 3 seconds to catch my interest. If it does, then I’ll usually watch it. If not then I simply fast forward.

I realize that not every product fits the bill for product placement in an actual show, but it seems that is a better way to advertise.

This is really just another step down the “Sue your customers, they’re guilty until proven innocent” road.

Remember, you can boil a frog a live, one degree at a time.

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Ok, so it’s only been 15 days, but the title is still correct right? I meant to write an update a day or two ago but it got away from me I guess. A friend reminded me.

Our storage building was FINALLY delivered yesterday. I’ve already got a few things moved out there, but there’s still a long way to go. I’m probably going to need a whole day to just go through what’s in the garage and move it. Still waiting on the office stuff to be cleared out, but that’s not something I’ve got any control over. It actually looks like she’ll be back in the office a week later than we were expecting. Not that big of a deal. Of course, this is just an excuse really. I could have been making some sort of progress all this time, but just having the space to move some of our boxes (mostly holiday items) helps a lot.

I’m still caught up with Gnucash and my daily Bible readings. Waking up at 5:30 hasn’t been that hard actually. I’ve slept a little past that a few days, but so far it hasn’t been a problem. Saturday I got up at 5:30, had my quiet time and then I took care of a few things around the house (quietly) before watching some tv. Since it was still a while before everyone usually gets up, I went back to sleep for a bit. I think that’s a fair tradeoff for not sleeping in on the one day I normally get to sleep in. Honestly though, the only real reason I did go back to sleep was because everything else I wanted to do was likely to be too noisy for that early in the morning.

I’ve also been inspired by this post. I’ve got my alarm set and I’ve been pretty consistent with it so far. I’m finding that it isn’t easy to stop whatever you’re in the middle of and focus on God at the sound of an alarm but there are a lot of things in life that aren’t easy and are still worth doing.

We’ve been to look at a few daycares with mixed results. I haven’t been completely blown away by any of them, but I didn’t expect to be. They’ve all had some good and bad points to them. Right now I’m looking to God for guidance with this.

I don’t plan to make any drastic changes at this point. What I’m doing now seems to be working so I will stick with it. I might look at waking up even earlier down the road, but I think I need to stick with 5:30 for a good long while before I make any more changes. I want to make sure my body isn’t going to start complaining about this new schedule first.

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It’s only the 8th of January, but so far I’ve managed to stick with my daily readings and entering receipts into Gnucash the same day the purchase is made. Neither are habits yet but I’m working on it.

I have decided that I need to make time for my daily quiet time instead of just finding time. Starting today, I’m going to be waking up at 5:30 to spend time praying, reading, and studying God’s Word. Right now I am commiting to 7 days. After that I’ll evaluate how it’s going and decide how to proceed from there.

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I’ve decided to do an end of the year post.  Typically this is the time people start thinking about New Year’s Resolutions, but I’ve never been a fan of them.  I have friends who do them and  that got me thinking about areas of my life that I need to work on.  I’d already been thinking over some of this, but I thought it would be a good idea to write it down.  Some of these are things I’ve been actively working on, and need to continue.  Others are things I haven’t gotten around to yet.

My Christian Walk

This is an area where I’ve been making some progress lately.  My current knowledge of scripture is sorely lacking.  I’ve forgotten much of what I once knew and my daily walk has been almost non-existent.  As my son is growing up, I want to be an example for him, and for others.  I’ve started to get in the habit of studying my Sunday School lesson each week, and a group of friends and I are going to read the Bible through this year. This is one area of my life where I feel confident I can make continual progress.

Time Management

At the root of almost everything I want to do is time management.  I’ve always been bad at managing my time.  The amount of time I have to spend on personal things is very limited these days.  From the time I get off work and get home until about 8pm I spend time with my son and wife, with the occasional chore thrown in.  If he gets to bed without much trouble, I can usually start taking care of things I need to do shortly after 8. Bedtime for me is somewhere between 10 and 11:30 so I’ve got a space of 2 or 3 hours in which to do housework, shower, and any relaxation or hobbies. The problem is that I find it very difficult to get motivated by this time of night. I’m usually exhausted and end up watching tv.  I can pretty well motivate myself to get a chore or two done, but that further tires me out and I feel even less like being productive.  My brain just shuts down by that time of night.

As any parent of a small child can attest, its very hard to find time to do housework.  We’ve fallen quite a bit behind and I know that’s not helping matters any.  Compounding the problem is the fact that my wife is still working from home.  This is just a temporary situation and should only last until sometime in January if all goes well.  She enjoys being able to stay home with our son, but it’s also especially tiring for her because she’s having to do her work after he goes to bed.  Plus, there’s all the added clutter from office equipment and supplies scattered around our house. The situation should slowly get better when she gets back to the office, though then other issues will crop up I’m sure.

Hobbies

I have a number of hobbies, but most are things I’m just interested in but don’t actually spend time on.  I would love to have more time for photography.  We purchased a Canon XSI to take pictures of our son shortly before his first birthday.  I love it but wish I could really learn how to use it.  A local art studio/museum offers a DSLR class at least once a year and I plan to attend the next one if at all possible.

Several of my hobbies and interests are in the free open source software community.  I’d like to learn programming so I can contribute to software projects that I feel strongly about.  I began working through some programming lessons several months back but got busy with other things and never got back to it.

All these issues come down to one thing: commitment. I have a problem with commitment and follow through.  I don’t think its a fear of commitment, its just that I can’t stick with things.  I’ve always thought I might be a little ADHD.  I have a short attention span most of the time.

Finances

I’ve been pretty slack about updating Gnucash lately.  I set up dropbox on all my computers so I could update Gnucash from any of them, but I’ve still been stacking receipts.  My wife’s laptop is in need of reformat/reinstall and after that I hope to get Dropbox and Gnucash on her laptop also so she can help with data entry.  This is just something I have to make a habit and there’s no way other than to just start.

Beyond tracking our money, we need to start budgeting better.  We’re going to have some new expenses this year and if we don’t start budgeting for them it’s going to get tough.

Other Thoughts

Looking back over all the things I want and need to do, I realize that I have to start with developing a few “life skills”.  If I can work on my time management, and commitment I think I can make significant progress in all of the things I want to do this year. I see one difference in the area I have made some progress. In my Christian Walk, I am held accountable.  To God, to myself, and to others.  Perhaps accountability will be a key component of getting back on track in other areas as well.

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Upgrading to Wordpress 2.7 RC1 today.  A major improvement over the ancient version I had been using.  Very nice.  Will it breathe new life into my blog?  Probably not.

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In case anyone is interested, my Mario Kart friend code is 3222-6297-1015

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Video is everywhere on the web. YouTube is one of the hottest destinations on the internet and it’s not just used for Crazy Indian Music Videos and cute cat videos. Increasingly there are videos how-tos, news videos, and more. While these may interest me, I’m not always free to watch a 5 or 10 minute video about something I may or may not find useful.

There are multiple problems with video only content. Maybe I’m in a hurry and I don’t have time to sit through the video to find the information I need. Maybe my internet connection is acting up and the video won’t load. Why should I have to committ my valueable time to view your content? You’re probably saying that I don’t have to and you’re right. But it stands to reason, if someone takes the time to create the content then they most likely want someone to view it. You also can’t just skim over a video like you can with text. What if I’ve already watched the video but I want to look find and find a specific piece of information? With a text article I can just browse to the section, find that information, and be done with it. If it’s a video on the other hand, I’ve got to find the video, wait for it to load, and then either watch the whole thing, or try my hand at skipping around and hoping to find it. Increasingly these days I find myself skipping the videos altogether. I’m sure I might be missing out on a lot of useful information and great content, but my time is just worth more than that. If there’s a video and an article also I’m going to read the article. If there’s just a video, chances are I’m going to skip it.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I have a suspicion that I’m probably not, especially considering the number of people who still use dial-up or only have very slow cable or dsl connections. If you’re making a video, great, but make sure that video is the best medium to convey your message. If you want to reach more people, then consider having a text article to go along with the video.

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Connor took his first steps today!  He’s still only somewhat steady on his feet and mostly holds on to things, but he’s going to be walking before too long.  I can’t wait!

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