One Year Later

It was one year ago yesterday that I worked my last day at Trane having no idea what God had in mind for me, trusting him but scared out of my mind. I didn't know if my future involved real estate appraising like I had desired or engineering or something completely different. Considering what the real estate market and mortgage industry has gone through in the last few months I am very glad real estate didn't work out or my house may have been another in a long list of foreclosures.


A week ago Thursday I left work at 7:00 after 11 hours of work. I had actually expected to do 12 or 13 hours in order to get everything done. So as I walking out out of the office I laughed at the idea that I considered working 11 hours a victory. Then I pondered where I was a year ago and wondered if I considered the new job to be a victory over the old one. And you know what, I do. I may work more than I did before (which I do get cranky about sometimes) but this job rarely makes me want to pound my head against something - Trane left me feeling that way on an almost daily basis. This job challenges me in a way that challenges my skills as an engineer not in a way that challenges my personality traits. For example, my inherit desire to work on one thing for an extended length of time without interruption at Trane I was lucky if I got to go more than 20 minutes without interruption.


So I may not be where I wanted to be but obviously God what he was doing. And I don't know that I want to do this forever but I can trust God to continue to lead me where he would have me go.

A Confession

I have a confession to make. The date is September 27th and I am listening to Christmas music. I have always been one of those people who lives by the rule that Christmas music is only to be enjoyed during the Christmas Season, which does not begin until Thanksgiving and ends on New Year's Day. In fact I had a college roommate who loved to listen to Christmas music all year long and it bothered me so much I took all her Christmas music and hid it until Thanksgiving. (Or did I take it after Christmas and give it back while we were moving out? I don't remember now)

I have actually been listening to this CD all year long since last Christmas. At first I justified it because I ordered shortly before Christmas last year and due to the blizzards in Denver I didn't receive it until after the holidays. Then I heard one of the songs on the radio in February or March and I thought, "Well if they can play it now then I can listen to my CD." Then tonight I tried to justify it by telling myself that there were none of the traditional Christmas songs on the CD but that is only half true. Then I moved to the fact that I am studying Matthew for BSF and we have been studying Matthew 1 and 2 so that reminds me of Christmas. But the truth of it is that I love this CD and I wanted to listen to it even though it isn't Thanksgiving yet. (For those who "need" to know it is "Do You See What I See?" by Todd Angew.)

And I have to say that I have been humored as I wrote this that I am trying to justify breaking rules that exist only in my head. And none of you would ever know about any of this except that I am bothering to tell you.

My Personality

The other day I was reading on a newspaper's website and there was an editorial about this free online personality test. I find these things fun and interesting so I decided to take it. Below are the results, which are the standard results for me.

Your personality type:
Serious and quiet, interested in security and peaceful living. Extremely thorough, responsible, and dependable. Well-developed powers of concentration. Usually interested in supporting and promoting traditions and establishments. Well organized and hard working, they work steadily towards identified goals. They can usually accomplish any task once they have set their mind to it.

Careers that could fit you includes:
Business executives, administrators and managers, accountants, police, detectives, judges, lawyers, medical doctors, dentists, computer programmers, systems analysts, computer specialists, auditors, electricians, math teachers, mechanical engineers, steelworkers, technicians, (militia members).

This reminds me of when I got the results of the Myers-Briggs 2 years ago - ISTJ's make great accountants and engineers. It is interesting that this one specifically said mechanical engineers and I am a little (or a lot) frightened by the militia members. I honestly think my personality written out in this way makes me sound very boring but accurate which makes me a little sad. Anyway, I also think being a mechanical engineering sounds boring so it is amazing to me how many people recently have said "Oh cool" when I told them what I do. I never quite sure how to respond when someone says that because I am wondering if they are just being polite because how could anyone think that sounds cool.

If you are interested in taking the same test here is the link: http://www.41q.com/

The Making of the Name Tags

Displayed on the right are all of my BSF name tags through the years. As a BSF discussion leader I get to make name tags for my group (or have to make them depending on how you look at it). How I look at it seems to vary depends on how things are going in the process. In the beginning I get to make them, somewhere in the middle I becomes that I have to and then in the end I get to again.


My creation for last year is the purple one on the right. My biggest dilemma was what combination of colors to use, I think at one point I had 4 name tags with the same design but different colors on my entertainment center. I don't think the women in my group paid much attention to them last year but as one of them was confronted with the possibility of making them for the staff this year she took a closer look and then complimented me on them.


This year (the red and blue one in the center) the design and colors was far more simply but the difficulty came in getting the new laptop with Vista, the existing 5 year old printer and the thicker blue paper to play nicely together. My printer doesn't like the blue paper and seems to jam every time I print on it (or it has so far) and every time I get a paper jam Vista decides it doesn't recognize the printer and I have to reload the printer software AND the printer drivers in order to print again. It took a week of emailing HP back and forth with HP to figure out the driver part of it. (And of course the older computer doesn't have the font I picked so I can't print them from that computer.) Maybe next year I can manage to make them without so much drama/trauma...

CamelBak Woes

While in Europe my CamelBak started to leak water and I wasn't able to figure out the problem while we were there but it happened at least twice and I think there was a third occasion when this occurred. I am going camping and probably hiking this weekend so I pulled it out and filled it with water and I have left it in many different positions to see what the problem is or if I should just go buy a new bladder. Now that I am at home there doesn't seem to be any problem. So I see a few possibilities - one being that as soon as I take it hiking it will begin to leak again or for some reason my CamelBak doesn't like Europe and therefore refuses to work there or the third possibility that something happened but there was a miraculous healing while flying back across the ocean.

This weekend I may have an answer to the problem but if not I just may have to go back to Europe to solve the mystery.

UPDATE: The CamelBak had water in it pretty much the whole weekend and I never had a problem. So either it doesn't like Europe or there was a miraculous healing. Any volunteers on "The Whirlwind European Tour Part 2" to help solve the mystery?

Spiritual Splinching

Maybe you didn't see this coming but I knew it was only a matter of time before I related Harry Potter to my spiritual journey.


Tonight I began reading "Get Out of That Pit" by Beth Moore and on the first page she says, "The laws of physics tell you that if you try to go one place without leaving another, you're in a for a pretty severe stretch." This immediately made me think of splinching in the world of Harry Potter. For those who don't read Harry splinching occurs when you attempt to disappear and immediately appear somewhere else but part of your body appears in the new location while leaving the rest of your body in the previous location. Splinching in the world of Harry occurs when you are not wholly focused on the new location.


I think this occurs in some sense spiritually for me, not that I can think of an instance where I can think of being in two places spiritually, but that I know I am stuck in some sort of pit and I want to get out but I don't allow myself to focus wholly on where I want to be which is walking along side of Christ. Some of my common reasons for remaining stuck is that I get distracted or more accurately I allow myself to get distracted. But for me I think a more common problem is that I am afraid to leave, I don't like where I am but a part of me is afraid of the unknown and I may not like my pit but I know what to expect from it. Or a second common reason for me to remain there is that I am afraid of the pain that is involved in climbing out, the rational part of me knows that it will be worth every minute of the pain to reach the other side but the rest of me needs to be thrown on the path before I will dare to walk the path.


I don't know what the book will say about getting out of the pit but I know enough to know that it won't be easy and I will still want to resist for some reason or other but if I chose to focus on Christ alone he will lift me out of pit and give me a firm place to stand.

My Own Bed

This weekend my parents were in town and when they come to town I let them have my bed and I sleep in the guest bedroom where the futon isn't big enough for 2 people. Normally I don't have any problems sleeping on the futon but the whole time they were here I didn't get a single good night of sleep. They returned home yesterday and I the first time I walked into my bedroom, looked at my bed and took in the smell of my room I had a strong desire to just go to bed (which I fought by reading several chapters of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows").

At first I was very excited about the idea of getting a good nights sleep but then I remembered that my own bed actually failed me for several nights after returning from Europe. But not last night - I got a great nights sleep:) And I am looking forward to repeating it all again tonight.