Back in the saddle, again

I finally got out on the bike this morning for only my third ride of the year (the others being New Year’s Day and a Sunday a few weeks ago). That certainly doesn’t bode well for my preparation for the Hot Doggett and Cycle North Carolina. With the ride back to Weaverville this afternoon, I’ll have a grand total of about 75 miles for the year. I don’t know if it was the fact that I was pacing behind Grant, or if the twice weekly lunchtime basketball games have actually given me some leg power, but I felt like I was riding better than in the past on that route. I was about two minutes slower than my “usual” time for that ride, but I figure that’s not too bad for the low mileage I have in my legs.

So, when were you saved?

Staying on the spiritual theme, here’s an anonymous comment to a recent Real Live Preacher post which I really liked:

I feel awkward when fellow Christians simply assume I subscribe to their brand of faith and ask “So, when were you saved?”

I’ve heard a story about somebody who once answered that question with “33 A.D.”

I think I’ll use that answer the next time someone asks.

God and Hondas

Why do so many churches have more than one parking space for their congregants? Doesn’t the Bible say we should all be in one Accord?

Pastor Thorny???

My buddy Scott posted the following as part of a comment over at my MySpace page: “Have a fun easter, Pastor Thorny.” We’ll ignore the uncapitalized “Easter” because young Scotty’s classical training, like mine, was in teevee news producing, and as anyone knows who’s paid even the slightest attention to the on-air graphics: spelling/punctuation/capitalization/etc. apparently are not very high on the list of must-have skills in the biz. (OK, so that’s not really “ignore”ing the issue, but I wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to exhibit more of my “bring myself up by cutting other people down” personality flaw.)

So, anyway, the point here is the “Pastor Thorny” reference. Now Scott has no way of knowing this, because our only communication the past couple of years has been via such exchanges on comment sections or by email, but he hit fairly close to home with what’s been on my mind lately (besides that whole unorganized/overwhelmed/swamped thing detailed in the last post). I’ve been feeling a bit of a pull toward something that may involve ministry in some form or fashion, particularly since the Thornhills joined the Weaverville UMC family, and more generally since shortly after I took the job at MHC. I know, I know–to paraphrase another friend’s reaction regarding something church related that I mentioned: “With your mouth, you want to work in a church?” But it’s really not as far fetched as it might appear at first blush.

Despite my lack of formal worship at anything beyond the “church of the inner springs” (aka St. Sealy’s) over most of the past decade and half (or so), my formative decades were spent rather immersed (or sprinkled, depending on your denominational preference) in the church: from eight years at East Hill Christian School; to every-Sunday-morning-Sunday-night-Wednesday-night at East Brent Baptist; to my ascension through Lad 1, Lad 2, Lad 3, Page, Squire, Knight, Pathfinder, Trailblazer, Guide, Achievement, High Achievement, and 120ish hours toward a service award in the Royal Ambassadors; to my selection of Baptist affiliated Mars Hill for college. While working through some of the RA requirements in high school, I briefly felt I might be being “called” to ministry, but decided I was mistaken.

Maybe I was mistaken; maybe I’m even mistaken now if I’m thinking the pull is necessarily toward eventual employment in some church occupation. Maybe this is yet another example of my classic “what if?” or “flavor of the moment” mindset that manifests itself throughout my life from career to nutrition to exercise to… you name it. But even if those “mistakens” are accurate, I’m finding my thoughts turning more and more toward exploring the possibilities. And who would have thought, given our relative religious/theological histories, that this pondering would have been precipitated by the everlovely Mrs. Thorny?

Getting Things Done

Posted this over at the forum at diyplanner.com and figured it was worth adding to my own site, too.

After all these years, my unorganizedness has finally gotten so bad that I have no choice but to do something about it. A Google search for something along the lines of “tips for getting organized” led me here, and thence to all manner of blogs, commercial sites, and various other pieces of related Web content. GTD kept popping up, so I bought the book, downloaded all the 43 Folders interviews with David Allen (and burned to CDs for listening in the car), and am generally trying to see if this is the plan that’ll stick for me.

What brought me to this point is the realization that I was (still am, I guess) losing track of too many things, work-wise. In my previous life as a producer in a TV newsroom, my organization style (or lack thereof) never really caused a problem. Every day brought a fresh start, and I rarely had projects that carried over multiple days.

A little over two years ago, though, my dream job (Director of Communications at my college alma mater) opened up and I was fortunate enough to get the job. I managed to keep my head above water for the first couple of months, but then my lack of skills for handling multiple overlapping-time-frame projects began to catch up with me. I’ve been feeling like I’m slowly sinking in the resulting morass, and while helping my wife (an office supply and calendar/planner/organizer junkie) search for a new planner system to replace what she’d been using, finally decided to grow up and do something about the organizational problems I’ve been causing myself.

So here I am, with a “365″ (the Target-branded Franklin Covey) “classic” size planner (available to me because the Mrs. wanted one binder but the “innards” of a different one, so we bought them both and she cobbled together her ideal setup), a hodgepodge of forms from said planner purchases and D*I*Y Planner, a bunch of new file folders and a brand spankin’ new Brother labeler to GTD-ize them, and already a frustration at trying to figure out an easy way to 7-hold punch paper without spending another $18 to buy the special hole puncher.

Wish me luck.

Quick photoblogging update

Finally got around to looking at the bird photos I took last Sunday after it snowed. They were on the memory card with the MHC basketball photos I took the day before, and I’d actually forgotten about these, but here they are.

More photoblogging

Last night’s snow has led to quite an avian menagerie at the feeders this morning, but since I’m currently too lazy to get new photos and upload them, let’s take a trip back in time, for a few pictures from last March, when I first brought home the new work camera for some experimentation. I’m fairly certain they’re the same visitors I’m seeing out the window this morning, just a year younger. Plus, as a bonus, I’ve thrown in one of his royal highness of the Thornhill Estate, Grendle.

 

 

…like a chorus of little birdies*

A look at a few of today’s visitors to the birdseed cafe out front of the homestead:

 

 

 

 

 

(*from “The Dance of the Cucumber,” for you non-Veggie Tales types)

The proof is in the proofreading

Kind of a hectic week at ye olde workplace, trying to get out the first edition of a new e-newsletter to alumni and friends of dear old MHC. Although I expect it to get better as we go, I’m fairly happy with the inaugural edition (see the Web version here). Lots of good feedback from the recipients, relatively few “unsubscribes” (more on that, shortly), and because of the newsletter, I heard from a few folks I haven’t heard from in awhile. One of those was a guy who was a student at MHC at the same time I was, who so far has been the only one to point out the glaring error I made. In the email version, which is very slightly different from the Web version linked above, I put a line at the top that read, “If this email does not display properly, click here to open it in a brower” (bold and italics added here). I don’t know if he’s the only one who noticed, or if everyone else just took pity on me. I need to stop proving to myself how hard it is to proofread my own work. There was at least one fairly big error: a broken “unsubscribe” link. Fortunately, the software we use to mail the newsletter also tracks what the recipients do with it, so I can tell who tried to unsubscribe,  and manually remove them from the email database before the next issue. All in all, though, I’d classify this first one as a success.

…open it up and see all the people

Seemed like a fine time was had by all last night at our Methodist Men’s Valentine’s dinner. Theme of the night: “We just wanted you ladies to know we can cook more than breakfast” (since our regular monthly meeting is a breakfast gathering before church). A few of the guys managed to keep the event a secret (I wonder how much lying was done in the name of keeping a secret about a church event ) others of us knew better than to try. The knives were laid out nicely, the cutout hearts had a certain artistic randomness about their distribution on the tables, and the plastic wrap keeping the bread bowls fresh looked almost professionally applied, if I do say so, myself. I think that was a much better contribution than if I had actually tried to do any of the cooking.

Staying on the church theme, we’ve got a great group in our “20s and 30s” Sunday School class (yes, I know, I’m technically too old, but who’s counting?). I still don’t know everyone’s name, since we’ve added a few new couples in the past month (need to make a cheat sheet that I can keep in my Bible or lesson book), but it seems like we’re meshing well. We’re also approaching our current study in a different way than in any other Sunday School class I’ve been in (granted, the last time I regularly attended Sunday School was more than 20 years ago, in high school): we’re sharing the “teaching” duties. It’s really more of a facilitating role than teaching, and it seems to be working really well. The everlovely Mrs. and I took our turn last week. It was kind of neat to have the “teacher’s edition” of the lesson book; kind of felt like we were privy to some top secret information that everybody else didn’t have.

But I think what’s really different and really neat about this class is that it’s more of an interactive time, instead of just sitting passively while the teacher does all the work. I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but I feel like we’re getting some of the benefits of what Steve Sensenig points to in his post about “simple church.” I’m not necessarily all that interested in simple church for myself–I feel like I’m getting a lot from the “institutional church” approach–but I do like the group dynamic when we start discussing/ talking/questioning/answering/pontificating. OK, so maybe I’m the only one who falls into that last “_ing,” as if I have some special theological insight because I read a bunch of religion-oriented blogs (some of which are linked over on the right side of this page). Anyway, it’s a great group of people, and I feel like we’re really blessed to have all ended up at this church, in this class, at this time. </sappiness>