cerebral discharge

Two of my brothers braved the 11 hour drive to come visit me in Indiana this week.

We’ve spent most of our first 3 days playing video games, chess, and watching movies. I’m starting to feel old, because I can no longer keep up with them in pretty much any video game we play! (although I’m still winning in chess!)

Tomorrow, we are going wakeboarding with some friends from church. Should be exciting.

I’ve had a rotten attitude the last few days. It’s chemical. I need to rise above.

Your prayers and well-wishes are much appreciated.

Let me just say this: if you are not a smoker, don’t bother ever starting. It’s not at all worth it. Nothing about it is satisfying until you are already dissatisfied from not having one. It doesn’t help kill regular stress, just “i haven’t had a cigarette” stress.

And you don’t have that kind of stress yet. So don’t start.

Learn from my mistakes. Tobacco will be my Achilles heel for the rest of my life.

You probably know what yours is by now. So…what is it?

Are you controlling it, or is it controlling you?

Do not be mastered by anything on this earth. It’s pure terror to feel that grip that drugs/addictions/compulsions can have on you, isn’t it? It’s terrifying to feel helpless in any situation.

Whoever you are, white black or purple, there’s probably been a point in your family’s history during which they have been enslaved. All of us have it in our heritage someplace. The only question is whether it was 40 years ago or 400 years ago or 4000 years ago.

I’m Irish, so I’m guessing that my family was under tremendous pressure/persecution/famine/slavery/whatever sometime in the last 500 years. Whatever my great-great-great-great-great grandpa went through to free himself from that bondage, he surely vowed never to let himself back into it.

Just like the alcoholics in my somewhat more recent family history had to do.

Just like my dad did with tobacco 6 years ago.

Just like I need to do today.

Just like you need to do.

Free yourself from whatever binds you, and run towards your dreams.

My life-dreams don’t include a compulsion to any chemical. Do yours?

Chasing what you really want requires giving up that which you don’t really want.

Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

There’s no reason why the title is in spanish.

Things at New Horizon are starting to change. Trouble is being stirred. Confrontation is starting to take place.

I love it.

American Christians worship the god of Comfort. We value nothing more than comfort.

Take a minute and think about it.

Seriously, stop reading for a second and consider how high comfort is on your list of things you really value.

Jesus set an example for us to live according to a certain set of values.

Comfort wasn’t anywhere near that list.

Whoever you are reading this, and whatever you believe, whatever you value:

What comfort are you willing to sacrifice to accomplish that which you truly desire?

Stop being passive. Take action towards achieving your goals.

Forsake comfort. Embrace motion.

I think I might actually fall asleep sometime before 2am tonight.

That makes me consider smiling. Not happy enough to actually smile, but I thought about it for a moment.

We’ll see how it goes.  Youtube and dailymotion tend to keep me up late sometimes.

yeah, that’s me.

I got an email from an HR guy at Sweetwater. I have a phone interview set up for Tuesday morning at 9:15 (in the AM…pulp fiction….anyone?  /crickets/ )

At this point, I don’t even care that I’ll have to drive 40 minutes to work every day.

I just look forward to answering a phone and getting a question from a motivated buyer. Someone who is interested in trading me his money for my gear/knowledge. Sounds like fun to me. I don’t have to constantly convince people of why they should care about my product. They already want it.

/sigh of relief

If you are a praying kind of person, send up three prayers for me. Two should be “give patrick this job” and one should be “also give patrick a nice new pair of shoes and maybe a sweet tie to wear at work.”

Oh, I dropped out of seminary for now. They want to take extra of my money because I don’t know how many classes I can take yet, and since real life isn’t as easy as they assume it is, apparently I owe them 120 bucks.

Yeah, not going to happen.

I’ll just take some time off. Maybe permanently, maybe not.

It’s 4:15. You’d think I’d be tired. But I’m not.

This is not fun.

I can’t sleep when I’m hot, and we haven’t put our AC in the window yet, so I’m probably just stuck not being able to sleep until we do that.

I need to buy some fans or something.

If you want to send me money, I’ll spend it either on fans to keep me cool, or maybe on this.

It’s been a couple nights in a row of this sleeplessness.

Last night, I managed to fall asleep somewhere around 3am. It’s pushing 2 right now, and I am not feeling sleepy at all yet.

Maybe if I stick in a movie, I’ll be able to sleep.

I’m still feeling out of control regarding my work situation. I mentioned to my wife that it’s rather frustrating to know that I can’t do a thing about my circumstances, and that my future at NHCC depends on God just bringing people to us. There’s very little I can even do this summer.

What’s even more frustrating is that all my responsibilities there are much more involved while the college is in, and there is very little I can do to build those ministries right now. Even worse, any long-term strategizing that I might do is probably going to be fruitless, as it will all come crashing down around me in about 8 weeks either way.

All I can do is pray.

I suppose that’s not too bad. The whole thing is in God’s hands.

The hard part is letting myself trust him. I know I ought to. He’s certainly proven himself faithful to me, even though I don’t in any way deserve for him to prove himself to me.

If any of you pray, please pray that God will bring New Horizon money.

Oh, and if any of you have money, please send it this way.

I’m not kidding.

I would be glad to explain to you why your money is being well spent, if you are at all interested in supporting what I’m doing out here at New Horizon.

You still think I’m kidding, but I’m not. I want your money.

I haven’t posted as often as I wanted to in the last few weeks.

I’m hoping to change that.

I put in an application at Sweetwater this weekend. If I get the job, I’ll be a Sales Engineer, which is a fancy way of saying I sell you stuff over the phone and internet.

My ideal job situation would be to stay at NHCC, but it’s unclear whether they will have the available funds to keep me around, and my personal money situation is…not good.

However, if things don’t shape up money-wise at NHCC, (and assuming that Grace doesn’t need me in the student development department, which would be sweet), then Sweetwater is probably my next choice.

There are many really sweet things about the job there that I would appreciate. For starters, I would get all of my music gear at cost, which means that whatever price Sweetwater pays, I pay. They won’t turn a nickel on my purchases, which have been substantial recently. I would probably save somewhere near $2000 in the next 18 months just taking advantage of this discount.

Also, Sweetwater, like all good companies, is committed to the development of their staff, which means that they would put me through a significant amount of training on their dime. I will be paid for 13 weeks before I am put on the floor.

I really dig learning.

And I really dig making money. (you wouldn’t know it by my current situation…i know)

All in all, it sounds like a good deal to me.