iSurrender
"You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation." -Revelation 5:9
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10/11/08 This blog has moved. CLICK HERE . 10/10/08 Not Yay! Our wireless network is Flakey with a capital F. So this is the first chance I have had to update my blog in quite a while. Please bear with me as I try to figure these shinanigans out. A major event occurred two days ago- I hit the end of the Bible. I have been reading through since February and I reached the end. I was trying to decided where to go back and start reading, and I decided to do Genesis, followed by the rest of it. In other words, I am going through again. But this time, slower. I went through last time at a rate of 5 chapters/day, which was much to fast to really meditate on the verses. This time I am reading for depth and comprehension, which probably means 1 chapter/day or less. It also means that I might need to get some concordances and commentaries. And my Hebrew Bible, if I really want to be ambitious. I also learned American Sign Language fingerspelling last week. One of my coworkers is deaf, so that inspired me. And now I have found some French tutorial stuff and have grand dreams of doing something besides memorizing the lyrics to the French songs that I have been playing repeatedly for the last month. This was the black week at work. At least half of the temp workers were laid off because there isn't as much work to do as we expected. Praise God I made the cuts. Hopefully the work picks up again so we can bring some people back. And I need to eat something quick before small group tonight, so until later... farewell! 10/6/08 Yay! We finally set up our own secure wireless network. That means that hopefully I won't get stuck without internet any more. It only took us two hours to do it, too! Yikes, technology... I used the new network to buy plane tickets to North Carolina for my friend's wedding. Now I only have to get off 2 days of work, rather than 6. I'm still nervous about talking to my boss about this. Please pray that it goes well. I'm the best man, so I kinda have to be at the wedding (not to mention the fact that I spent $350 on plane tickets) but I don't want to lose my job. And now it is once again past my bedtime. I am trying to be more responsible about that. My first week and a half of work went well, despite consistently getting not enough sleep, until last Thursday. Then I crashed and burned. It was one of the longer work days of my life and I got really crabby. I hate being crabby. So I'm going to bed now. 10/4/08
 Time to post pictures!! Here are two pictures of my apartment. The first is of the outside, the second is... well, obviously of the inside. I know they could be easily confused, so I thought I would help you out there with my descriptions. *ahem* As for the quality of the images, the first is horrible because there is no subtle way to take a picture of an apartment building. People automatically question your motives. So I pretended I was taking a picture of the geese flying over head and clicked as I swung the camera around. The second one is horrible because my batteries were dead and I knew that I only had enough time to turn the camera on and click the shutter button- no time to zoom or set up a shot. And, because I was tired from 2 hours of shooting and I knew it would be a bad picture anyway, I didn't bother to set up proper lighting. So there you go.This shot shows the living room with all of my junk piled in it. You can also see one of the dining room chairs on the left. that's where the table is. the kitchen would be further to the left. On the far left of the picture you can see the hallway and the door frame for my room mate's bedroom.10/3/08 Sorry it's been awhile. I was having issues with accessing the internet. I have entered a backdated entry that I wrote out on Wednesday on my computer. Today I biked a long, long way down the river. Half of the way back to my old college, in fact. If I had crossed the river and gone another couple of miles I would have been on familiar trails. That blows my mind. I love it when my world shrinks like that. I also got an amazing workout. Best of all, it was BEAUTIFUL!!! I saw at least three views that could have made postcards, but I didn't have my camera. The weather was perfect. I saw 6 deer, hundreds of ducks, squirrels and rabbits, herons and seagulls who were diving after fish (and the fish were jumping to catch insects in the fading golden sunlight)... it was fantastic. I plan to go out there with my camera tomorrow. If the weather is nice at all I will have some pictures worth seeing. 10/1/08 Today I got "moved up," up as my supervisor put it. What that really means is that we got a bunch of new people and ran out of computers in the main room, so I and another guy got put in a cubicle together. But it was kind of a compliment. She chose the two of us to leave because she knew that we could take care of our work without much supervision or direction. Or maybe she just wanted to get us out of the room! The new location is certainly a lot more lonely. I miss all the other people. I was really excited today when the printer got a paper jam. Finally, something I have experience with! It was even a Hewlett Packard. So I did my best to save the day. It turned into a group effort, but we found the elusive shred of paper after removing every possible drawer, door, and cartridge. Oh, the joys of office life. I also cracked a seat belt mount casing today. I had to hit the brakes really hard to avoid creaming a guy who had his turn signal on but didn't turn when I expected him to. The strange thing is, I was only going about 5 mph (fortunately). But I had to stop the car in about a yard. Fortunately, it stopped. And tonight, after all the excitement and stress of the day, I made a less than amazing meal out of baked beans and potatoes, all cooked up together. I wouldn't really recommend it, but I'll probably eat it again sometime. I'm strange like that. 9/30/08 Much of my work involves tracking down names and information on a computer. It makes me feel like I work for the FBI, so it is kind of fun. I also have some very interesting coworkers and a very flexible boss. All around, I would say that God provided me with a great job while I am raising support. This afternoon I went and cheered on my old cross country team as they did intervals. My friend Dan, who is also an alumni, talked me into going for a 6+ mile run on our favorite (rather wild) trails. Now I feel like I got hit by a semi, and I am ready for sleep. In other news, I lost my checkbook. This was bad, because rent is due tomorrow. So I silently ranted and raved (because my room mate is asleep) about how much I hate checkbooks because I always lose them. Fortunately, God pointed me to where I had left it last before I could get completely bent out of shape. Almost, but not quite. There are not words to describe how much I hate losing my checkbook. It happens to me at least once every other month, and instead of getting used to it, I get more frustrated that I still haven't figured out how to keep track of my valuables. God gave me a great mind, but my memory for names, numbers, and where I left things is absolutely terrible. 9/29/08 I had the opportunity to speak at a church on Sunday. It was small (do to many of the women being at a retreat) but good, and I got to reconnect with some neighbors and friends. I got a third of the way back to the cities and my car suddenly conked out. I rolled to a stop, tried the ignition, and it started right up. But I called my parents anyway because I have had fuel problems with this car before and now I really didn't trust it, especially for cities driving. Dad drove the Saturn out to me and we swapped vehicles so he could get it looked at. I drove on to the cities and got there super duper late. Short night. Meanwhile, my dad started driving back home, got several miles down the road, and it killed on him again. He rolled to a stop, started it, and kept going. It went not as far and killed again. My dad, who believes vehemently that cell phones are a waste of money, was blessed by God, because as he rolled to a stop with his emergency flashers on, the Sheriff's Deputy rolled up behind him. She agreed to escort him home. So he tried to start the car, and this time it wouldn't start at all. So she called a tow truck for him, and my mom, and he got the car to our favorite shop and himself home. Today, after ripping out the gas tank, the service station figured out what was wrong- the gas guage. It read half a tank, but the tank was completely bone dry. The little plunger thingy in the tank had gotten stuck somehow. So, I will probably be making another trip home this upcoming weekend to swap cars again. But praise God for bringing the Deputy right at the perfect time, or my dad would have been sitting on the road forever. And praise God that with all of the crazy rain and huge semis, it never conked out in the fast lane while dad or I was passing a semi. He was watching over us. He always is. 9/26/08 Well, I was planning to be home by now, but then I started watching the debate (and no, I will not comment on the debate). So I am sleeping here for the night. Work was good today, but we had computer problems so they sent us home early. Not much traffic! So my roommate and I had a delightful afternoon talking about philosophy and worldview and religion and politics and then going for a bike ride/rollerblading expedition. And then the debate... And now it's late... And I still haven't put pictures here in a while... Later. 9/25/08 Yup, the back roads definitely work better for the morning commute. It took me about 35 minutes again this morning. Tomorrow I start at 7 am, so I expect the roads to be even better. I have a bunch of forms to fill out today- apartment application, employment forms, etc, etc. Who on earth would fill out forms for a living? I think it would drive me crazy. I went for a run today and ended up behind some guy who looked like he knew what he was doing. I had to chase him. Really, I had no choice ;-) and I ended up going 6 1/4 quick miles. That was rough. 9/24/08
Work went well today, and I took back roads so the commute was better too. I found some pretty little parks on the way home, so I may just bring my running clothes to work some days and stop for a run on the way home. 9/23/08
Oofda. I could have driven from Sauk Centre to Fargo in the time it took me to drive to and from work today. That's mainly because I took a wrong turn coming home and ended up half way to downtown before I could get turned back around. Rush hour in a downpour = John strung tight as a violin. I am going to try the back roads tomorrow.
Other than that, the day was good. Work went well, and I even sit next to a really pleasant person. Not that we talk at all while we are working, but you know...
After I finally got home, I went for a short run before getting chased in by lightening, and then I went for a swim. We have a pool that is larger than most hotel pools but smaller than a regular pool, so I got a little bit of exercise. I hope tomorrow we have better weather so I can explore the running paths more.
9/22/08
I am back, after a long absence, and I have a whole bunch of news. First of all, I now have a second job. Starting tomorrow, I am doing data entry at a company in Eden Prairie. Praise God for regular income! Second of all, to accomodate this job, I moved today to Eagan (South of the Twin Cities). I have moved in with a friend of mine, and I think we are going to enjoy having each other as apartment mates. He showed me around a little bit and said that there are a lot of great trails around here for running or mountain biking. Sounds promising! He also said that they used to have a hockey rink one block from our apartment in the winter. Hopefully they reinstate that. I'll get some pictures up later, once I have unpacked my camera.
9/17/08
1 Tim. 4:6 "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." Today was a catch-up day. I balanced my checkbook, did some "data management", sent some emails, etc. It's amazing how much of one's life can be spent doing paperwork- and I still have more to do. I will always have more to do. Inspirational thought from my mom: "We'll never be famous. We'll never have our faces on designer underwear."
Well, I haven't posted any pictures in a while. Here is a clay deer that my dad made (impressive, huh?)  and a couple of bluebirds that were having a party in our back yard. The babies were in the bath while Daddy Blue watched from the railing.
9/16/089/26/08
I called a temp agency today, and I have an interview set for this Friday. Last night I read 2 Thes. and 3:11 grabbed my attention. Paul roasts some people for being busybodies rather than keeping busy with real work. Sometimes I feel like in my life that line blurs. I have lots of projects that may or may not qualify as legitimate busyness (which Paul seems to roughly define as something that puts food in your mouth). This is especially true with partnership development. I pray that God would help me to know what projects are worth my time and which ones are just fluff that needs to sit on a back burner.
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