Category: Signs Of Life

General thoughts, mostly blog updates

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To Micro-Blog, or not to Micro-Blog?

I’ve been in the blogging “business” for almost two decades now. My first blog was on Earthlink dial-up, way back in the 90’s. Writing my thoughts, sharing my experiences, teaching the lessons I’ve learned over the years. Asking hard questions, and working through the answers.

I was a blogger way before Facebook existed, before Twitter was even a thing. Then all of these “micro-blogging” sites popped up, which were geared towards a business model of advertising. They are an ADD’ers worst nightmare. There isn’t any meaningful discourse, only re-posted sound bytes, advertising, and virtual chain letters (and dank memes). There are now entire sites built around only reposting other people’s content (I’m looking at you, Pinterest).

I’m not interested in the spammy advertising model of any of these micro-blogging sites. I don’t care about likes, reposts, adverts, or clickbait headlines. I don’t care about shallow hit-and-run interaction. I could certainly do without all the visual noise and clutter.

What exactly am I gaining from participating in these time sinkholes? Am I using them to advertise something? If you’re not, chances are I don’t need them in my life, taking over my spare time. I certainly don’t need them. And I’ve been on almost all of them at some point. Yes, even Myspace. Sigh.

I think this speaks to how our communication, as a whole, has become largely trite and ineffective. I don’t enjoy using micro-blogging sites, because you never get more than scratching the surface. The superficiality of it all just makes me want to stop talking to shallow people. And because of the nature of the media, that’s all you ever get to see: people’s shallow thoughts. Meaningless “likes” and re-shares. There are very few people with new ideas, and even fewer who can articulate those ideas effectively. 99% of what we see and hear on social media is regurgitated pablum (and untrustworthy, at that).

So how shall we utilize the internet for its intended purpose of conveyance of ideas? Continue reading “To Micro-Blog, or not to Micro-Blog?”

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Time To Slow Down

So much has happened in the last few months. Where do I begin?

First, let me say I’m extremely thankful that there are people who actually still read what I write here.

Second, there have been huge changes in my life as of late. I started a new job (which I love, and am actually good at). My family joined a large church, participated in a local (to us) campus launch, and a year later, we ended up moving to a smaller, less hectic church environment. I’m slowly working on minimizing more things out of my life. I’m focusing on developing my relationship with God, and learning more about the Holy Spirit’s role in my life.

I’m playing music a lot. I’m working on cars a lot less. Remodeling the house. Teaching my kids. Serving my wife, and the church. Trying to keep a grip on everything.

I’m also still (after a long hiatus) co-hosting the awesome ADD Masterminds podcast.

But…

Continue reading “Time To Slow Down”

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I Literally Just Can’t

I have been frustrated lately. It seems as though God is trying to stretch me into things I wasn’t trying to stretch into. I’m having things thrown at me from every angle, and sometimes I can barely keep track of what day of the week it is, much less all the things people want me to do.

One of the things I want to prioritize is spending time with my kids. However, that’s hard to do when they’re teenagers, and don’t want to do anything with me. Or they want to do things with me that I can’t do. Makes it kind of hard. And I spend time taking care of them, cooking for them, cleaning up after them, playing with them, driving them places… any chance I get (when they’re not busy), I’m spending it with my kids. My dad never could do that with me. My kids have no idea how good they have it.

I’ve also got creative forces pulling me every which way, including writing another book, recording an album, and relaunching a podcast. Also rebuilding my ’65 Rambler. And possibly building more cosplay props. I’ve been asked to play in concerts, join in writer’s groups, attend ceremonies, organize activities, and who knows what else. I barely have the time and energy to do *one* of those, so certainly not all of them. Continue reading “I Literally Just Can’t”

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Near-Life Experience

“We just had a near-life experience, fellas!”

Today has been 6 years since I got hit by a car. I can’t believe how far I’ve come since then, and how good God has been to me and my family.

I’ve learned so much since then! And I can honestly say I’ve heard God’s voice on these times in ways I never could have imagined beforehand. God has a way of getting your attention like that.

I’m not going to make a huge deal of it, because- you know- life goes on. But just wanted to say that every year my hip hurts less and less, and this year it’s almost completely normal. I’ve been doing a lot of cycling (more at the beginning of the year, but I’m getting back into it) and I thought it would protest, but amazingly, it’s been quite uneventful, which is good when you’re talking about potential problem areas.

Along these lines, I’m looking at starting up a bicycle-themed men’s small Bible study group. There’s tons of life applications we can learn together from it, and I’m looking forward to that possibility. All of this will happen at our new church home, of course- I’ll post more about that transition when I can put my thoughts together on it. Lots to say there, but I want to say it in a way that doesn’t come across as critical, because it wasn’t under bad terms at all.

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Struggling With The Spirit

When we believers struggle with the Holy Spirit in our lives, it doesn’t mean we’re fighting against God- not just against Him, anyway- it also means we’re fighting against our own nature. Our war is a spiritual war, according to Ephesians 6:12

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Our nature as sinful people can’t be trusted. On our own, we’re weak. Our minds lie to ourselves, telling us we don’t need God, we don’t need redemption, and we don’t need help.

But we do need help. And that help comes in the form of the Holy Spirit.

Over the last 20 years, I’ve learned a lot about God and Scripture. I learned a lot about Jesus Christ, and the early church in the book of Acts. But one thing I was hardly taught was The Holy Spirit. And the sad part is, I don’t think it was intentional.

I think churches today fall into two main camps: those who completely ignore the Spirit’s work in believers’ lives, and those who overemphasize it to the point where even other believers think they’re crazy. There seems to be no middle ground, no in-between. No common sense approach seems to have taken hold.

I’m just now, after 20 years in the faith, realizing that I knew next to nothing about the Holy Spirit. And that shouldn’t be the case- certainly not in America.

What then, do we know about the Spirit? What does the Scripture say about Him? What is His role in my life? Continue reading “Struggling With The Spirit”

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Finding Direction In A Dark World

Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking.

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about what my life’s purpose is. There’s plenty of things tied into this, but the majority of it boils down to this:

If you had to define your existence with one driving statement of purpose, what would it be?

If you don’t know, what are you waiting for?

And this is where I found myself after years of floating, like a leaf in the wind. I realized I had no real, solid purpose. I mean, sure, I had “purpose” but I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was. “Following God” only gets you so far, as that could look like any number of things. “Loving your neighbor” could be me, sitting on my couch, invisibly loving people from afar. What does “helping people” look like? Specifically, for me? What does “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” look like, for me? Continue reading “Finding Direction In A Dark World”

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Keep Moving Forward

I haven’t really talked about it much this time around, but last week (July 12) was the 5-year mark since I was hit by a car and hospitalized while bike commuting.

It’s been an interesting 5 years, I have to say. The first year was strictly physical and mental recovery. Year 2 was me proving that I had recovered, so I trained and did a 75 mile bike tour. Years 3-4 were mostly me being too busy to do anything bike-related. Year 5 was the year of the Comeback, with me starting to bike commute again, and eventually, getting my son into cycling as well.

It’s been a very good process of therapy. I’m still not commuting as much as I’d like, but my situation is such that it’s not really possible just yet. I am now riding group rides with Andy and building up a new (to me) legitimate road bike. I’ll post a story about that on Friday, it’s pretty exciting to be building bikes again!

I feel like I’m transitioning into a different era. I am juggling lots of responsibilities, and I’m trying to make solid choices. I’m spending a lot of time playing and working with the family. I’m laying aside most of my extracurricular stuff, and focusing on my health and my family: two things which can’t be pushed off till later.

So, that means I’ve spent a lot of time riding my bike on the trainer, or in group rides, instead of commuting. This rubs my sensibilities the wrong way, but I don’t have much choice.

I think this will be my last annual recap of the accident, though. The fact that I didn’t even think about posting about it last week means I’ve officially moved on. From this point forward, my focus will be on where we go from here.

Get out and ride. Doesn’t matter where.

Just ride.

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To Live Is To Die

I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately.

Not by choice, mind you. It just seems to be popping up everywhere. Family members, movies, TV, the news, books. Someone dies and I think about it. In fact, three famous personalities- Lemmy Kilmister, David Bowie, and Alan Rickman (all who were the same age as my dad, coincidentally) died in the past week or so.

As a believer in Jesus Christ- who was able to look Death in the eyes and overcome it- Death has an interesting role to play for me. It’s not the end of everything.

Even so, losing someone you love is always sad. Being afraid to lose someone you love is even worse, as you relive it over and over again in anticipation. We meditate on the possibility dying, and in doing so, I think we tend to overlook the significance of the actual life that did (or could) end.

Death is significant, but only because it marks the end of something that was significant.

In other words: If life wasn’t important, death wouldn’t matter. Our modern funerals are known for celebrating the departed’s life; remembering the good memories and things associated with it.

How hard would it be for us to celebrate this while people are still alive? Why is it that we mourn with regret, only when it’s too late? What would it look like if we celebrated the lives of our loved ones every day? Continue reading “To Live Is To Die”

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I’m Now A Goodreads Author

After a bit of work, I decided to apply for author status on goodreads.com so I can organize my bookshelf, and let you- my faithful readers- know when I have more writing projects coming up. You can visit my Goodreads author page here.

Since I’m not going to waste a whole day’s blog post on that short announcement, here’s a few thoughts I’ve been chewing on:

After an excellent discussion about yesterday’s blog post, I’ve decided to write a daily creed that I can recall, to help me keep my focus. I haven’t written it yet, but I will be working on it over the weekend.

Also, I’ve decided to dedicate my Saturday mornings to writing on my novels. In 3 hours, I can get several thousand words written, and though it’s not as fast as I’d like, it’s as much as I can commit to right now.

My exercise routine has been on hold for 3 weeks. That’s right, I haven’t done anything. What I have done is reclaimed my sleep schedule. It’s going to be a struggle…. it may be a while before I get back to bike commuting, unless I can move my work hours. Getting up at 4:30 just isn’t working. It’s affecting my mental state in a bad way. I will go back to it at some point, but for now, sleep is more important.

I’ve been fighting car problems, too. Nobody wants to hear about those, but let’s just say, I had to rip the whole interior out of my Saturn because of water leaks in the sunroof. The ’65 Rambler needs a brake cylinder seal replaced before I can drive it again. And since I’m not riding my bike, I’m left driving the gutted Saturn.

Creativity-wise, I’m starting a new project soon with my friend and fellow author, musician, and ADD Mastermind, JohnnyHow. Can’t give much detail on it yet, but it’s going to be fun, random, and in all likelihood extremely crazy. And did I mention random?

Fun times ahead! Stay tuned, kids!

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Adrenalinn III Review: Part 1

This will cover the Adrenalinn III effects pedal, by Roger Linn designs. Since there’s so much to this thing, I’m going to break it up into sections. The first thing we’re going to look at is the built-in amp models.

Not only does this pedal have 40 different amp sounds (including bass amps), each one has (3) tone controls, plus drive and a drive “boost” control, so you can actually get a lot more than 40 sounds out of it. When you add in different pickup configurations, you can get almost unlimited tones out of it.

Here’s the list of amps (the RLD ones are from Roger Linn Design, not modeled off of a specific amp): Continue reading “Adrenalinn III Review: Part 1”