I haven’t  been on facebook at all this last week and it’s  been liberating.

This habit is likely to continue.

Mega-church naming suggestion: avoid naming your organization things that don’t imply most small towns outside of the city are smaller than your weekly attendance. Calling your behemoth congregation, “The Village,” Or “Hillside Family Fellowship,” when you can seat a basketball arena’s worth of attendees is misleading.  When the likelihood your attendees will run into a familiar face increases with the number of, “where are you sitting?” texts they send you need to help people understand how vanilla things are giing to be. Go with something like “church of the 80-20 rule.” Or “Jesus loves our headcount fellowship.” If that doesn’t work try something more medium sized like, “church of the wholly ambiguous,” or, “The Catholic Church.” [JUST KIDDING THE CATHOLICS ARE HUGE]. Also consider going with J.P. Morgan/Chase/Church.

When I was a kid I went through a bbq sauce phase.  I would eat anything with bbq sauce on it. Then I moved to Texas as an adult and could not fathom why someone would ruin their Texas bbq with slathered sauce coating the delicious bbq. Apparently I’ve grown up somewhat.  However,  in Texas is a place called freebirds, and they have bbq sauce in their burritos and it is amazing.  It’s a funny thing,  but I dig it.

I realized in a bout of insomnia that I have a bucket list problem.  I live with some wierd internal regrets that are not useful in function or legitimate in source.  I really wanted to grow up to be a rock star musician when I was a teenager. It was on my bucket list that I record an album and every year I tell myself,  “This will be the year.” And then it isn’t.

I have two months left until I’m 37, and I no longer want to be famous,  I just want to leave something behind. And with that in mind my bucket list is dumped out. I will try to record some music,  I’ve recorded some already,  but really I need to do what’s important to get to the next phase of maturing. And that doesn’t need regrets or an album. Besides,  who buys albums any more?

Behold the waffle song, a song I recorded despite not wanting to put it on an album.

I have coded with some difficulty lately. I’ve been wrestling with the code. But it isn’t because the code is hard, it is because it must be good. It must be better thought out. It must be the best I can produce.

This has lead to less code over all, but that code has been cleaner, easier to read, and makes my life much easier because of those things. It’s part of my attempt to continue to be a craftsman.

1) write the tests to break my code
2) write my code until it works
3) write that code cleaner and better

This isn’t revolutionary by any stretch, but I’ve been disciplined about it, and that’s been key. Discipline is revolutionary.

My brother gets to go work as an assistant to a master brewer at Elk Mountain Brewery in Parker, CO. It’s just one day, but still, it’s amazingly cool that he gets the opportunity.  I’m stoked for him with equal parts of jealousy and pride 🙂

There are few things that I’ve done for 15 years.

Programming? 13.x years.

The guitar, the drum and the piano. All for 20+ years.  But with moderate commitment and I’d burn some of my guitars if I needed a fire.  The piano needs a good tuning and at least one key repaired.

Reading? 31 or so years.  But I don’t read so gooder compared to this.

Parenting? 11.1 years.  But nothing as important as being married to my Jessica.  Being a dad is a pretty big deal.  But I need the one before the other.

I think being married to Jessica is the second most important relationship I’ve got.  God, then Jessica, then my kids, then the rest of everything else.

Thanks for all the rest of you for helping support this pretty darn important relationship! You have witnessed a miracle in 15 years and I can’t  wait for you to see the rest of  it.

I keep changing my avatar on Facebook because my former piano teacher poked at me for my white square avatar saying it confused her. I don’t always like to confuse people. 

I do like to exceed expectations, though, so I’ve been trying to change it daily.

Those a few of them. And don’t be shocked if I go back to the white square every once in a while.

I’ve been working long hours lately.  It’s taken a toll on my health.  In case you weren’t sure what that term means every time I walk into my office I have to pay $0.75 at an actual toll booth and gain a half pound in weight.  It’s not pretty.  Toll booths should be prettier given the fact they’re going to take your money.

The good news is that the feature I’ve been pouring myself into is likely going to ship in the next 24-48 hours and we’ll be good to go. I might get some sleep again.  But my body will take a few weeks to move into “tired because it is night time” mode.  Which is a fun transition because it takes me a few weeks to get into “Spending Your Nights Awake and Daze Wishing You Were Asleep” mode.  Working long hours is sometimes part of my job, and that is not a complaint.  What my real complaint is is the fact the clock has hours between about 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM.  I would like to do away with those, or take a siesta, and then all would be right with the world.

Except for that ugly toolbooth.  That I could do without.  I’m still trying to figure out why it’s in my hallway.  Also: where does this fat come from?  I’m pretty sure that it’s not organic cow-beef fat.  I’m guessing it’s from pig, in which case, I want to get it with bacon. Lots & lots of bacon.

There’s a hymn with the name Jesus Paid It all. I enjoy the song a lot, it’s got great lyrics except for the first line of the chorus. It goes like this:

Jesus paid it all
all to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

Except we don’t owe Jesus. He has redeemed us and made us adopted sons. This is the kind of position that negates any sense of owing.

So we changed it to this:

Jesus paid it all
His grace and love to show
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

That’s a chorus I can sing with great gusto!