THE TIMES, THEY ARE A' CHANGIN'

This cute little tidbit was something I had discovered about a year ago, and forgot about until it came up again in a recent conversation. They call it "The Human Clock - A Photo for Every Minute of the Day" - people across the world submit photos with a specific set of numbers incorporated - 3:59 for example. Upload your photo to The Human Clock, and when it's time, you may see your numerological masterpiece. What I love about it is the world-wide span of it all. You regularly see pictures from outside the U.S.; each minute, you get to broaden your horizons outside your computer screen.

COMING UP FOR AIR

Hi all,

Yeah, it's been two months since my last post. Yeah, that's a long time. One of the people I work with was talking about a meeting we would schedule some time in the future, and he said "we'll schedule it when you come up for air." How appropriate.

Have you ever been truly behind the 8-ball? Felt the pressure of the rock AND the hard place? If you work, have you ever had to get away from your cubicle/office and go out to your car just so you could be alone for a while and let your heart race until it was too tired and the weight of your worry passed for a moment? If you have, welcome to where I've been.

Early in May, THE boss called me into his office. Actually, he first scheduled one of those one-on-one meetings - called it a debrief or somesuch. He even rescheduled it a couple of times; something that I thought meant this wouldn't be a big deal. Turns out it was just a sign of his wish to avoid confict. Finally, I get called in. He asks me to close the door - never a good sign. He then proceeds to tell me my work has been far below par, and that if I don't get it back to snuff in the next 30 days, he's going to have to "give me my notice" - fire me. That moment hits you like a sledgehammer.

I kept having flashbacks of my last job, a sales job. I WAS fired from that one. And honestly, I don't blame them now. I wasn't good at it. You take a 23 year old kid, put him in front of a 50+ Vice President of a publicly traded company and ask the kid to convince the Veep to spend thousands of dollars with your company - we'll see how well you fare. It's like asking a fish to herd cattle. I'm smart, and I'm even a bit cocky, but I'm not that.

But then you think of your family. Your obligations. The bills you pay every month. The rent, the mortgage, the loans. The wound to your self esteem feels the salt of reality poured in. You can't breathe very well - you can't even think very well. Fight-or-flight response has taken over, and it's screaming "flight" very clearly.

It's amazing how much you can survive when you have to. It's amazing how hard you'll work when you're whipped on by your own fear. I won't hold you in suspense - I still have the same job, and I honestly feel like I've turned things around. Here's some things I've learned:

• Pray. I don't care what your religion is, you can't handle the levels of worry and fear you will find in The Real World. Prayer is how you cope.


• Breathe. Your brain won't work without oxygen.


• If you aren't fired yet, you're still working. Do your job, and do it better, because you hvae a chance. Trust can be earned back.


• Don't get comfortable. Be calm, but don't be unfocused. You're paid to make the company's problems YOUR problems.


• Realize you have a life. You are not your job. Even getting fired doesn't eliminate who you are.

So that's what I've had to deal with, so can you give me a break on not posting for a while? I kept having ideas for posts, and that's why I'm back. I'm going to have more, and I hope you enjoy it.

COOL TOOLS TO DROOL...OH, FORGET IT

Just found a cool site from a guy named Kevin Kelly - he's got a section to his site with some of his "Cool Tools" - real-life gadgets he things really work. I.E., his favorite pocket knife is a $1 boxcutter. I just started checking it out, so comment if you find anything really good.

MUSIC FROM LENLOWLAND

Lately I've become a HUGE fan of a mash-up DJ by the name of Luke Enlow, known to his buds as Lenlow. You should run on over to his music page and download pretty much everything that's posted. And while you're at it, if you'd like to know more about him, check his blog

I’LL SAY IT IS ART

Have any of you seen a mention about the UK-based graffiti artist named Bansky? Turns out the Brits have a counter-culture genius on their hands. Take a look at his website, by all means, but first check out this article about his latest exploit. Turns out the man decides to waltz in to some of the greatest museums of our time (including The Brooklyn Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and New York's Museum of Natural History) and decides to hang his own pieces of art right next to the masters. What's worse, one of his pieces was up there for THREE DAYS! By any measure, that is just GREATNESS.

FRAUGHT WITH PERIL

Last weekend, I learned of two evils in this world. Two puissant forces determined to drive the wedge of hostility amongst betwixt ourselves and our bretheren of the human race, and to entrench painful despair in our very souls.

Of these evils I speak, the first is the underfunded gift card.

My wife got a nice gift card from a relative this Christmas, and has yet to spend it. Why, you may ask? There's a very good reason. The card was for a certain dollar amount, let's call it X. The average purchase at the store whereat this gift card is honored is another dollar amount - let's call that Y. Now, you can probably guess that Y is greater than X. Quite a bit greater, actually. Of course, one could buy some little trinket or tchotchke, but what use is that when you could easily buy the same item yourself at a different store for much less? You, my friend, are left in a quandry. A chasm of unparalleled agony from which you can not escape. Either you waste the gift card on a meaningless purchase, thus stripping the intended value of the holiday gift away and tossing it carlessly away as rubbish, or you invest so much of your own money in purchasing a real gift for yourself from the carded establishment that it negates the worth of the gift card all together. A true evil in this world my friends, indeed.

The second of these horrors I speak also deals with shoppping. I shall call it "the unanswerable display."

Consider this: you are shopping for clothes with your significant other. You're in the clothing department of the opposite sex, which, for a man, means you might as well be in another nation. Your dearest love is perusing the racked wares, sometimes pausing, other times moving quickly by. And then, it comes. The Moment. Your mate removes a piece of clothing from the rack and holds it up, saying nothing but merely wearing a quizzical expression. And, at that moment, you are stuck between a solidity of rock and gravity of a hard place between which you have never been before. For what shall be your answer?

Either you assume she likes said garment, and is seeking your outside approval only to affirm the inclinations she is already feeling in her heart - meaning you should offer some token praise for the raiment, even if you feel it's more deserving of display upon some cell wall within Arkahm Asylum.

Or, she is feeling a moment of whimsy, and raises the foul fabric design aloft merely to mock it with some sarcastic remark as "Oh, this is SOOOO me!". Your proper response then is to join in the sarcasm, relishing in its irony, or perhaps heaping some derogatory comment upon the woven wreck hung so impossibly from the cheap plastic incorrrectly-assigned-as-another-size hanger.

Fail to determine the correct response, and you have either insulted a garment which your loved one truly felt a yearning towards, or you have intimated that she should garb herself with images too mind-numbing to be seen in public. You balance a tight rope above a lake of burining sulfur, with the Sword of Damocles suspended above.

Truly, these are great and heavy perils.

"...I want a girl with a short skirt and a looooooong jacket..."

LAYING ASIDE

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." -Hebrews 12:1

Those of you who have read some of my previous blog entries will know I'm always amazed at how the Biblical authors can make these statements of belief, faith, fact or action with such certainty and ease. The Hebrews passage above just says to "throw off" everything that's keeping you down, like you can just do a metaphysical wet-dog shake and clear your life of everything. It boggles the mind.
See, more these days I feel like Paul as he's speaking in Romans 7">Romans 7 where he says he's doing the very things he doesn't want to do. You know, this may come as a shock to all you good, strong readers out there, but nobody's perfect. Even the Christians. Sometimes especially the Christians. I focus so much on the things I'm not doing, the ways I'm not right, or the times I fall short. I don't see my Walk as a race, but more of a stumbling crawl through the dust at times. That's not to say that I don't also have my moments, but that my overall perception is much more negative.

And that's where I think I've got it wrong.

See, when I'm thinking about anything other than the present; when I'm reminding myself of past failures or lapses or crash-and-burns;
when I'm at those moments I'm letting the evil win the game. Despair, self-defeat, looking back, pity-parties, deep sighs of regret - whatever you call them, they're all a part of the ways we push God out of our lives. This isn't what a "spirit of power" does. Repentance means recognizing you were wrong and turning away completely - from the sin AND the guilt. Because if God's grace doesn't work until you've beaten yourself up enough, until you've moped about enough, then our salvation is locked off in some limbo, and we've got no certainty.
Take a look at your failures. Remember them, learn from them, and then walk on. Lay it ALL aside.

"But I'm holding on underneath this shroud...Rain."