Archive - August, 2007

Running Just to Catch Myself

" I can't stand still. Can I get a witness? Can you hear me Anybody, Anybody? I think I am running just to catch myself." - Running Just to Catch Myself by Mark Schultz
I think that this would describe what my life is like right now, and last night, my body gave up. Not that I've been running around like a crazy man or anything but I guess I've been busier than normal. I got home last night and here would be a sample time-line as to what went down: 5:00 - Arrive Home 6:00 - Eat Dinner 7:00 - Relax and watch TV before doing more work from home 12:00 AM - Woke up, checked e-mail, went to bed 6:30 AM - Woke up to go to work So yes, I was all of 30 minutes short of sleeping 12 hours (I fell asleep around 7:00) and still could have slept more. However, today I'm MUCH more awake and hope to accomplish everything planned for yesterday evening and today. We'll see how that works out. Today's agenda includes having lunch with my awesome friend Shawna, building a custom Windows XP image for my work IBM ThinkPad T42, and selling more crap on eBay tonight! I did get to stop by Crown Mercedes in Dublin and look at the C350 Sport. I was NOT impressed with the C300 Luxury, but the sport... the sport was awesome. I'm very torn, because the C350 isn't quite with the BMW 335i was (of course, I couldn't drive the C350 but did drive the 335i). I know from  a features perspective I can load the C350 for the same price as a mid-range 335i... oh the options... Well, I better get back to work... Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 here I come! Later, - J

New Day

I feel like blogging before the bigger part of the day begins. I still feel like I'm waking up but at least the day seems to be passing quickly,  I didn't even realize that it was 8:00 AM. I don't think I have much planned today. I do have "lunch with Shawna" on my calendar. I wonder if she remembered... I'll have to txt her here in a bit and remind her :-). Well, I better get off here and see what trouble I can get in... Until later. -J

My Latest and Greatest

  1. Good Charlotte - The River
  2. MercyMe - Bring the Rain
  3. Newsboys - Something Beautiful

My Anthem

So, I go through these phases in my music. If you were standing on the corner near my house, this is what you'd hear each day as I left: Sunday: Chris Tomlin - Your Grace Is Enough Monday: Good Charlotte - The River Tuesday: Blink-182 - I Miss You Wednesday: Nelly - Ride Wit Me Thursday: Linkin Park - In The End Friday: Reba McEntire - Fancy Saturday: Boys Like Girls - The Great Escape There is just an example of what I would listen to in a run of a week. Now that I have XM my music has broadened even more. Lately I've been going through this strange "Good Charlotte" phase. Like, I have two full CDs of Good Charlotte in my car and I listen to them going to work and at lunch and coming home. Currently, this would be my top tracks: From Good Morning Revival: 3. The River 4. Dance Floor Anthem 7. Where Would We Be Now 8. Break Apart Her Heart 9. All Black 10. Beautiful Place 12. Broken Heart Parade 13. March On From Young and The Hopeless: 2. The Anthem 3. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous 6. Boys and Girls 8. Hold On 9. Riot Girl 10. Say Anything 12. The Young and the Hopeless 14. Moving On 15. If You Leave I've done this before and got some different comments so I think I'll do this again. Here is the rule of the game, I can only take a few lines of each song to describe how I feel. No titles, you have to be a fan (or googleholic) to find out where they came from. ENJOY (and feel free to over analyze)
"If you leave I won't cry I won't waste single day But if you leave no don't look back I'll be running the other way"
"Even when there's no one there for you Even when the days are long for you Like soldiers March on"
"I keep my true thought locked beside my hearts black box"
"Girls Don't Like Boys Girls Like Cars And Money Boys Will Laugh At Girls When They're Not Funny"
"I've done a lot of things wrong But I swear I'm a believer Like the prodigal son I was out on my own Now I'm trying to find my way back home Baptized in the river I'm delivered"
"Don't tell her she is the reason that you live Don't give her everything that you got to give"
"Some say that time changes, best friends can become strangers"
" Some friends become enemies Some friends become your family Make the best with what you’re given This ain’t dying This is living!"
"We got problems We don't know how to solve them Everywhere we go, we got some skeletons to follow We got baggage you know we're gonna drag it"
"Take me to the places that we lived Before the days came and made us older I wanna feel the way I did back then"
" And my high school, it felt more to me Like a jail cell, a penitentiary My time spent there, it only made me see That I don't ever wanna be like you I don't wanna do the things you do"
"But we all bleed the same way as you do And we all have the same things to go through Hold on...if you feel like letting go Hold on...it gets better than you know"
Just some random musical thoughts. Read them and enjoy. Comments always welcome. Until tomorrow... Night, - J

Childhood Friends

Ever remember those kids that you met as a child and due to one circumstance or another you just lost touch with the other person. Someone moved, your parents lost touch with their parents, you changed schools, you changed churches, or life just happened to direct you both down two different paths. I often wonder about kids that I knew when I was a child (and by child I mean ages 4-7 and kids I didn’t really attend school with) and where they ended up and how they turned out.

Well, the other day I was at home with my mom and Grandma and we were talking about me when I was real little and the kids that I knew. One friend in that came up was a kid I knew by the name of Seth. We met when both of our families attended a Baptist church in the area where I grew up. I knew Seth from like the age of 3 to maybe 5 or 6. Life just happened to take us and our families down two different roads and as quickly as we met, we parted.

So, about 16 years pass and that brings us to present day. I happened to look up Seth on Facebook and sure enough, found him. We exchanged a few e-mails and agreed to meet, tonight for dinner and conversation.

After agreeing to meet him I was pretty excited to see him. I called Hope to tell her about it and how I couldn’t believe that I found one of my childhood friends! She knew that some of my past experiences with meeting childhood friends didn’t turn out so well for me so she told me she hoped for the best.

As cool as I may seem sometimes, I do get nervous like any normal human being. I started thinking about different things today as I got ready and drove up to the restaurant. Then the “what if’s” started…

 

“What if he doesn’t want to talk to me” “What if I don’t want to talk to him” “What if he thinks I’m rude, snotty, stuck up, obnoxiously loud, etc…”

 

The list went on for quite some time. Then I thought what if he doesn’t show up. You know me, over thinking everything.  Finally, 8:00 PM shows up and he pulls into the parking lot. I was on the phone at the time with Hope and I said, “I have to go, I think that was Seth ,wait, I’m not sure… Maybe… wait, he standing at my car, must be him… BYE.” Typical John right there…

 

So dinner was good, we ate at a place I’d never been (VillaNova on High St.). I had the pizza which was excellent. At first I wasn’t sure where to start because I had to remember that he didn’t know where I went to school, lived, work or really anything and I didn’t know anything about him. We ended up talking through dinner and then stood in the parking lot until about 2:15 AM catching up on old times.

 

The biggest thing that struck me about Seth (besides the fact he looks like he did when he was a kid) was his faith in God. I rarely meet anyone who has a faith in God or one that has any depth (that is my age at least). To be able to openly share and discuss my Christianity was comforting and encouraging. I see that God has watched over Seth and has guided him through life.

 

I can say that it was only by God’s will that I found Seth. It is funny how God can bring people together and then be apart for years and then He brings them back together and there is some connection there that two people who are essentially strangers, can still be friends.

 

It seems that we just put our friendship on “hold” and just picked up where we left off. Sure our ways of playing Ghostbusters in my basement, riding around in my electric toy Jeep, playing “pretend” and our overall childish ways of entertainment are behind us. We now have our adult lives with jobs, school, relationships and our new interests, but yet we still find common ground and the friendship lives on.

 

I’m sure in the coming weeks Seth will stop by my blog to check it out and see what I’m up to. I felt it important to post about my evening, if anything to remember it in the future so I can recall what happened. I can say that tonight before I lay my head down to sleep, I will thank God for bringing back an old friend into my life.

 

I’ll try and blog tomorrow about what else is going on in life. Night all…

 

-J

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