it's been over a year or so since i launched my career in web design, but i had this boss at my first job who would always say i was a rocket scientist who had been assigned to cleaning toilets.
i'm no rocket scientist, but i feel like i've been cleaning toilets lately.
i've many reasons to praise God for all the joy He has brought me lately. i could make a list, maybe i will. it goes something like this:
--at work, yesterday and today both ended with a really tough project coming my way. not tough in terms of "do i know how to do it" but tough in terms of "i can't get it done that quickly". but i did. i went ahead and tried to get beyond all the drama and insanity and just finished the job. i made people happy in the process and it felt sort of good.
--i've got a great team of people to learn from and listen to each day
--i've got a great team to share Jesus with
--charlie hall played worship at my church tonight. thanks chuck for your vulnerability!
--i don't like that girl or this girl. i've got my heart set on one girl. the girl. the girl i've liked for several, several years. do i surprise her? do i just start pursuing her? do i try to win her heart? do i break all the rules? do i try to approach this as a logical conversation? what does that look like?
nothing profound to say today. i had lunch with some good friends from college today. i'm two years removed from the college scene, but two of the people who ate deli sandwiches with me, are ones i really care about.
i'm @ a breaking point where if i want to learn, i either need a macbook or a new place to office while @ work. if i continue to not be able to have a reasonable amount of quiet time/privacy at work, i won't be learning anything. i'm getting no privacy right now @ work.
i watched the history channel tonight, which was my reward for laboring over a clean bathroom. my interest was peaked when i found that the history channel could step in just ten days after such a tragedy and bring to light a very informative and unbiased analysis of what occurred in blackburg on monday, april 16, 2007.
tonight i learned much more of the killer and the students who are left to make sense out of such a devastating event. correct me if i'm wrong here chad (the only friend i have who carries a history degree), but i believe history to be rewarding because it's not to be dissected for its politics, but rather only for its facts. and that's what the history channel gave me tonight: facts. a breath of fresh air, they didn't try to make sense out of all of it, but only the situation at hand.
what we all should know is that everyone feels something for that campus right now, whether they know it or not. we can busy ourselves and desensitize ourselves and see it just as another headline, but when we slow down to think things through, we begin to feel for those involved. just because we are busy doesn't mean we shouldn't slow down to grieve for the loss of 31 lives and pray for those in blacksburg to be renewed with God's hope.
for the last six years, i've been known to watch smallville semi-regularly. if you're not familiar, it's this drama tv show on the wb about Clark Kent during his high school years. i really got out of watching it & have probably only watched a few episodes between its numerous seasons.
most honestly, lana lang is the reason i watch -- we have the same birthday, along with tiger woods. it's hot. lana is hot, not tiger -- anyway, there was a rerun just yesterday & i caught part of it. lana is a mystery b/c you don't ever know why she's in the series & not lois lane, but you like it b/c she's way hotter than lois ever possibly could dream to be and she delivers her lines much better than some nerdy girl named lois.
like any "good" soap opera, apparently you don't miss much when you don't watch. i jumped into a part of the story and knew exactly what was going on. clark's dad had just won the a public office of some sort over lex luthor. lex was really frustrated with the entire kent family. clark proposes to lana. lana gets killed in a car accident on the very same day by lex.
what gives? so this is how you write my birthday-sharing mistress out of the show?! such script-writing deserves a big wtf!! clark deserves her. clark shouldn't have to go through this crap. clark & lana were it. why do bad things happen to good guys like clark? why does he have to wait? why must he suffer? why should her family suffer?
if a thousand years to You are like grass sprouting up then that counts for about 5 days, because I cut my grass about every five days and every week when i cut the grass, new grass just completely replaces the old and nothing really remains but that old lawnmower which has been owned by someone for decades. and decades pass, but yet this grass-cutting machine continues to guzzle unleaded fuel like i drink espresso and though its blades seem like somewhat of a safety hazard to me, the grass continues to need cutting. behold, the old is gone and the new has sprung forth. yes indeed, new life has sprung forth, the week's grass has sprung forth, a new generation of people in desperation has sprung forth and who will mow the grass this week?
i'm on vacation for the next five days. i looked into buying a laptop today and i went so close to living outside my means. but i talked some financial sense into myself like i was raised to do and determined that emptying my savings account for a $2800 macbook was not in my better interest. i will be reading (and writing) much over the next few days as i retreat to rediscover the things to which God has called me.
my life consists of blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing. my career has begun @ BR and I believe those who surround me are some of the most talented, brilliant and dynamic individuals. i am daily inspired. could one ask to be inspired 365 days/year? i am working the dream job. thank you, God. thank you, dear Lord. thank you, Jesus. praise to You for blessing upon blessing upon blessing.
google offers free 411 service <--welcome to the world of never needing a phone number ever again
..brandon & i just hung out. it was quite the spontaneous meet-up. he was @ the roasterie & i just happened to be going there for some saturday morning coffee. we probably think alike, since we drink the office espresso monday thru friday. the caffeine addiction has us going SOME where for a fix of good jo.
so anyway, we just talked code (actionscript, css/js tie-ins, the new cs3 which our team will be getting and other general nerdiness). but we did connect, getting to talk about our team-structure and for the most part it was just good convo.
except for one thing. i now feel like i NEED a macbook pro. yuck. someone save me from the large expenditure which that will entail.
i was telling someone last night that learning is really important to me, as a web designer & i'm getting absolutely no time to continue learning in my current position. things change daily on the web. you have to stay ahead of the times.
what up with that!??
Every time it rains, I love it. And every time it rains, I remember that scene in Goonies when they're all in the attic going through all the junk and they find the treasure map and somebody tells the story of One-Eyed Willie and pirates and this place across town and through the woods.
And as the rain comes down and pelts on the roof just outside my window, I'm in that moment. I'm living that moment. And I connect with that one kid with the inhaler because he has asthma and I have asthma and he can't wait for an adventure and I can't wait for one either.
Every time it rains, I wish I was a 14-year-old kid looking for treasure clues in an attic with Cindy Lauper songs dancing in my head.
found
i found my journal on saturday morning while i was putting new sheets on my bed.
weekend
this weekend was fun; i watched two KU games in their entirety and i'm somehow becoming a fan of their run to an NCAA title this year. my friend skylar was visiting and we hung out saturday night and all-day today.
vay-cay
i'm making good on some vacation time this month. i'll be retreating on two different extended weekends. i really, really look forward to that time. (it really can't come quick enough right now)
ideal self
what is ideal self? is there a part of your life you're just waiting to come together? is there a place you'll arrive when everything will come together and things will be good? when music will become more brilliant? when work will seem lighter? i've discovered that two years ago, the job i have now was my ideal self. and now that i am here, i'm not satisfied. but that kind of focus is on the here & now.
as a 20-something Christian, where should my focus be? should it be on a good job? working towards a raise? finding a spouse whom i adore? getting my own mortgage? paying off my college debt? or should it be any of these things? my mind tells me that these are the things i should build my future upon.
each one is a responsible thing to do, but is it something that makes or breaks my happiness? are these things that I really can trust in or rely on? read psalm 90. the entire passage talks about humbling ourselves to look outside of money for our comfort. here's a small part of the chapter.
"Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,
so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives."
psalm 90.14 (NLT)
i have placed things on my heart & left them there for several weeks & months now. i've arrived at age 24 finding that friends must be trusted & to go silent on the things of the heart feels good. i love that feeling. in fact, for two months i've been addicted to that feeling: the silence of the heart.
i just feel like i'm locking things up with God. and that i've been given some sort of right to do that. what i don't like is this void in my life. i feel like i'm missing something huge. and it all has to do with silence.
it's almost as if i've taken a vow of silence in efforts to fill the void. it feels like fasting, because it takes great self-control. i've grown up in the church -- i've been going to church my entire life. they say that Jesus fills the voids of our heart. in fact, if i had to explain Jesus Christ to someone, i would probably have to walk them through emptiness. i can't describe it.
it's probably time i start believing that Jesus fills voids.
i feel like i've picked up the basic skills to great, valid css. it's web-speak for i feel like i've learned a ton in the last year in regards to css design. to appreciate css, check out a site like this.
I came home from being out tonight to find a wonderful article written by a well-published author named John Piper in my gmail inbox. Piper's conviction & dedication to truth stands as his highest merit in writing. Yet, normally his newsletters don't arouse me. His books are a different story -- I read those.
But tonight's article was entitled, "Hello, My Father Just Died." I knew this was going to be a close encounter with my favorite author. Read the story here. And while you're at it, dwell on the deeper things of life tonight.
**cheers**
+ the perfect job
+ a kick-butt creative director
+ music that takes me back to summer 2004
+ endlessly talented co-workers
+ my parents
+ singleness
+ the maturity that exudes one the age of 24 years
+ photoshop brushes
+ helping others
I hate my PC. I had moved my machine from my bedroom to the downstairs living room at the end of last summer. When I made the move, I wasn't even motivated to get my sound system hooked up again. To heck with it, I thought. I thought it an excuse not to use my computer in the evenings when I got home from work.
It's now March and I just set up the sound system. Which is great. Now I can listen to music @ home again.
I'm a mac geek now and have been for two years now. I was thinking about the point at which I became a mac-lover the other day. It was actually very, very frustrating for me to not have the right to right-clicking when I was taking design courses in college. After I worked a part-time college job on a mac, I fell in love.
I then remembered the several times I made fun of my professor's iBook while I was in college. To her face. We were good friends. I just liked kidding her. What a jerk I was!! I now make the same comments about PC's. Irony. Ignorance. Small-brained me. I'm surprised she didn't laugh me out of her classroom. Since I wanted to be a designer and all.
Okay, this post is over. My writing has been extremely kiddish and straight-forward. **end post**
i'm moving to nyc. for a week. some people call it vacation. i call it fourth of july fun. i get to see the fourth celebrations & fanfares, i get to see george steinbrenner and the yankees and les miserables on broadway (hopefully in English, b/c i don't speak a lick of french).
cheers, friends!
sean
i'm updating a blog i coded for my friend last fall and I just love building upon the architecture i set up @ that time. normally, getting into old code & moving things around isn't any fun @ all -- but i built this one with some pretty good organization & i'm having fun adding functionality to it.
i'm actually stripping out comments b/c we were getting spammed quite a bit. but i'm adding an RSS feed, a paginator & making sure that Google loves the site enough to get some better traffic.
the blog is for jon shirley. i'll post the RSS feed once it's up.
It's been a long while since I've been as inspired by a portfolio as this guy named Chris Erickson. He's an all-in-one art director, well-accompliced animator, brand & packaging specialist, typeface-maker and environmental designer. How'd you like to have one of those on your team?
i rearranged my room last night around 11pm. it all started with just vacuuming b/c the floor needed to be vacuumed. and then i decided i would try to put my bed in a different place & move some other furniture around. i now have a lot of floor place. we'll see if that's actually needed. maybe i should get an area rug.
i think my room feels more like a place i can retire to. maybe that's just b/c all of my laundry is done, the furniture is now dusted and whatever else goes with cleaning.
Well if you would shine your love down here
oh Make our hearts as perfect as new
Oh if you would shine your love down here oh
I promise I'd reflect right back at you
Oh I promise I'd reflect it right back at you
Oh I promise we'll reflect it right back at you
Your attention please.
We live in a social marketplace, where everyone begs to be noticed. I'm not sure if I'll ever understand it, but I know that I participate as a member of that place. Everyone wants to be congratulated, thanked, applauded, rewarded or remembered for something.
And it all makes pretty good sense; there's something very deep inside us that marks us as lovers of something. Lovers of people, lovers of money, whatever it be. All I know is that as children grow up, the boys who are affirmed by their fathers tend to be the ones that grow up to be dependably faithful men. The daughters with good fathers are the ones who usually find themselves well-affirmed and content with self appearance. But who am I?
I'm no expert: my overgeneralizations may be way off-key. But all in all, I would say that most everyone starves for someone's attention. At the end of the day, we each long to be noticed, admired, remembered, applauded.
So remember that. And give someone your listening ears today.
i'm re-skinning an internal website for work and listening to old school coldplay. not bad. i kind of enjoy it.
originally posted on Tuesday, February 06, 2007....
i'm going to the nyc for the fourth of july this year.
work is good. people are leaving. that's not good @ all. in fact, two guys are leaving in the next week or so. this is a great company, but the web world moves fast & people jockey for better companies, salaries and benefits all the time. i feel like i'm called to devotion with these guys.
i'm trying to get rails up & running on the mac os x. i'm finding that i need developer tools and that there always seems to be another hoop to jump through. but that's why it's not easy to be a developer. that's why they get paid the big bucks. (author's note: i do not get paid the big bucks.)
