It's time for a break...

I was reading back through some of my old blog posts this morning, tagging them appropriately, (100 down, 300 still to go…) when I found this post that I’d written back in April about burning out and refreshing. In that post I talk about getting burned out with worship team, and how nice it was to get at least one week a month off.

That was in April. That week that I had off in April was the last Sunday that I’ve had off since then. Basically, for 4 months. My usual substitute leaders and musicians have been gone on vacations and with family issues and illnesses, and the end result is that when you’re the leader, you’re stuck with it if nobody else is available. And I feel like I’m starting to fray around the edges.

Now, I know that there are people from my congregation who will read this. Let me assure you all, I love leading the music. But there is a point at which some things have to come into balance. I have a full-time job outside the church that will entail more travel over the upcoming months and the potential for overtime hours. I have a wife and two young daughters at home who need to have me around. I have (or will soon have) an elder/deacon list of folks who I am responsible for as their elder. Then there’s the whole realm of responsibilities to myself, like taking the time to exercise regularly to stay healthy, and taking enough time in recreation (and think of it with a hyphen: “re-creation”) to stay sane. When the commitments of worship team are added in, too, it’s a lot.

So basically, I’m back to the “something’s gotta give” spot that I was in back at Christmas. I should apologize to my wife right now. She has noted in the past how I manage to get things better for a while, but then everything creeps back in and I’m busier than before. I’m there again. It’s creeped back in. And now I have more work stuff on top of it. I’m sorry, Becky, I’ve let it happen again.

I know what my pastor’s reaction will be to this when I talk to him: he’ll say that I should make the effort to get other leaders lined up so I don’t have to do it all the time. And he’ll be right, of course. What I need his help with is in urging others to be available to lead to give me time off. There are at least half a dozen men at church fully capable of filling the pulpit when Richard is gone. Lord, where are the musicians?

I have at least a little enforced vacation coming up - the weekend after labor day we’re leaving the kiddos with my parents and going to Wisconsin Dells for a couple of days. And I will be gone on that Sunday. My brother Andrew is in town for the fall, so he will be able to provide some relief, I think, provided that I can get him trained up in all the surrounding tasks. (He can do the music just fine, it’s just the administrative details he will need to learn.) But he probably won’t be around past Christmas. I need to find a longer-term fix than that.

So I’ve gone and spilled my guts on the blog again. Now I need to do something in the real world to make it happen. What do I do to break this cycle? I can’t afford to do this every year. Seriously, folks, if you have suggestions or thoughts, I want to hear them. Thanks.

'Cause we're all praying for the ice to break...

This song has been rattling around in my head for the past day or two. It’s beautiful, intense, personal stuff, made all the moreso by the knowledge that Andy was really writing this about himself.

My struggles haven’t been specifically with anger like is dealt with here, but I still understand the feeling of “waiting for the ice to break” - for that cold stasis of the soul to crack up into rushing, vibrant spring - Rich Mullins’ streams “all swollen with winter, winter unfrozen, free to run away now…” What a beautiful call to repentance, renewal, and refreshing.

You’re floating like some Lost episode
Now you’re there and I want you but how
How can I get there inside your house of mirrors
Are you looking for a window,
Are you looking for a door?

Cause it’s been too long, too long - It’s been like this too long.

There’s Scripture taped up to the wall now
Are you getting any solace
From the promises, the Word?
Cause you’re angry,
And you can call it what you want to,
But the tree grows from the seeds in your ground

And it’s been too long, too long - It’s been like this too long

Cause you’re lonely
And when Matthew said forgiveness
Your heart leapt and your eyes looked away
You get so busy with the hours and the mortgage
You can turn cold and ignore how you’ve changed

Cause we’re all praying for the ice to break
Waiting for our friend to come back to us again

Cause you’re hurting more than anybody
And they’ve got no power over you now…

-- Andrew Osenga, House of Mirrors

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The new monitor's here!

A trusty IT guy came by this morning to deliver a new Dell 19" LCD monitor. He was also good enough to haul away the old 21" CRT behemoth. Amazing how my 19" CRT now looks fuzzy and crappy in comparison.

The one downside is that the resolution of the LCD is only 1280 x 1024, and I’m more used to running 1600 x 1200. But I’ll adjust some font sizes and then get used to it. Well worth it to have the new monitor. And I can see some of my desk again!

Feeling Squeezed

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working away when suddenly, bzzt! and one of my monitors went dark. I have been using two monitors for the past couple of years; I have two CRTs on my desk; one 21" behemoth and one 19" behemoth’s-younger-brother. My desk panel that they sit on is bowed down in the middle by about an inch because of the weight. I’ve been wishing for LCD monitors for a while (hey, the new folks have them!) but the company’s policy is that we’ll only replace them when they die.

So yesterday my 21" HP monitor died. It had been showing symptons for a month or so now, so I’m not too suprised. I have a new 19" LCD monitor on order; hopefully it’ll get delivered yet this afternoon; if not, definitely tomorrow. Then I can go back to working in wide-screen happiness. As it is right now, I’m limited to 1600 x 1200 resolution, and I’m feeling a bit squeezed.

This is why I wear a belt

The main button on my (nearly-new) khakis just came off. Fortunately, there’s still that little inside button. If I had no belt, I’d be going home to change. As it is, I think I’ll survive until the day is over.

geek alert

The title is just a warning that some of your eyes might glaze over whilst reading this post. Others of you will find it interesting. Still others of you might have good advice to offer me…

Anyhow, I needed a good geek project to work on this weekend, I wanted to try something new. So I have this old PC sitting downstairs that I’m not using for anything except as a backup for the laptop and for doing filesharing (gotta love indieriver.net!), and it’s bogged down with lots of stuff; I’ve had it for 5 or 6 years now and never wiped it or reloaded it. So, I decided to have some fun and try doing a Linux installation. I actually settled on Ubuntu, which appears to have a fairly decent desktop interface and a nicely-designed installation.

Installing Ubuntu was actually very easy. I backed up the little data I wanted to save onto the laptop, then went ahead and repartitioned the 60 GB hard drive. The installation went quickly, and I was up and running. Getting a driver to work for my D-Link DWL-G122 USB Wifi adapter was a bit more of a challenge. But I got it working Saturday night after some serious consultation of the Ubuntu help forums.

Basically I’m stuck with two things right now. 1) I have a printer attached to the Linux machine, and it works fine. However, I need to get it shared with the laptop. I almost had it last night, but no such luck. There’s some combination of Samba and CUPS settings that I haven’t hit on yet that should do the trick. 2) I need to get a file sharing program running. The obvious choice is Azureus. However, it’s running into Java errors and hanging up on me; I end up having to kill -9 it every time. I did a brief web search for other torrent programs that might be good, but haven’t found anything I’m very happy with yet. I used Utorrent when I was using Windows, and like it a lot. Unfortunately, there’s no Linux version available.

Any suggestions from anybody for a torrent program? Should I just try debugging the Java issues in Azureus? Since that’s the primary function of that PC, it’d be nice to have it working. And I can’t afford to spend too many more nights up past 10 pm working on it. It makes it really hard to get up in the morning and run.

My first training run

I have a 5K course mapped out through our neighborhood, so I gave it my first try at that distance on Friday. It was early afternoon, probably 85 degrees out. Here were my split times:

Mile 1: 7:43
Mile 2: 18:56
Mile 3: 31:38
End: 34:20

I was cranking it out the first mile, didn’t have to walk much at all. Actually, through the whole thing, it wasn’t the cardio part that was slowing me down - it was my legs. My calves were cramping up pretty bad. The second mile I walked more; obviously, I went from an 8-minute mile to an 11-minute second mile. The third mile was then about 12 minutes. There is a nice long uphill grade to finish the third mile, it’s a good test.

All in all, 34 minutes isn’t too awful for my first try. I need to keep at this, though, so I can be better prepared for the 5K on September 16th.

I'm back home...

Got home from Seattle about midnight last night. Oh so much fun. Our plane was late leaving Seattle, but fortunately we had a good tail wind or we never would’ve made the connection in Minneapolis. As it was, could our gates have been further apart? Not really. We landed at F8 and had to get to A6. I think we were the last two on the plane. But we got home. Oh, and I got to fly first class from Seattle to MSP. That was nice.

I’m hitting work for long enough to catch up a bit and file my expense report, then I’m going home to see Becky and the girls. On a totally unrelated note, if I have time to crash this weekend, I’m thinking of converting my old PC down in the basement to run some *nix flavor instead of Windows… Ubuntu is looking like the early favorite. Should be a fun task.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go...

Well, it’s off to Seattle, actually, in about 30 minutes. Headed up there again for work, catching the little yucky turboprop from CID to MSP and then a 757 to SEA… Hopefully there won’t be as much excitement as last time…

I’ve got a new book to read on the way that I’m quite looking forward to: N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian. Hopefully I can digest it and give a little report when I get back.

Taking the Plunge

This weekend I signed up for a 5K run. I’ve never done something like this before. I’ve not been a big runner in past years, but with 30 approaching and too many pounds around my waistline, it is time to get more serious about it. I have increased motivation to run; finding time is still the difficulty.

Inspired in a good part by Jeff and Adriene’s efforts, I sent in my registration Saturday to run in a 5K in Solon on September 16th. In a fit of insanity, my sister Rebecca agreed to run it with me. She’ll probably beat me, too. So now I have seven weeks to try to get ready for it.

I’m not really scared of the distance; when I get out and run now I do 2.5 - 3 miles in about 30 minutes. I still end up having to interspurse some walking amidst the jogging. I just need to push my endurance up so I can walk less and jog more.

An aside here: I found a really cool website that has been helpful: mapmyrun.com. It uses the Google Maps API to allow you to chart a run (even going cross-country if you want to!). It’ll then show you the mileage of that run, and, given the time it took you to run it and your age, height, and weight, will even calculate a calorie burn. Maps can be saved and shared. Pretty cool. You can see my little 5K training map if you want to.

It’ll be tough to train any this week, seeing as I have a full day today and then I’m headed to Seattle tomorrow morning early. Maybe once I get back and it’s a bit cooler I can start cranking out the miles. I’ve gotta try…