Three Shades of Awesome

Hey all, just wanna put a post up here about the new Needtobreathe album. It went up on iTunes today, and it’s so freaking killer it’s not even funny. Starting with their last album they got this sorta southern vibe going on, and while that album was great, this new one is just, better. I haven’t even gotten to listen through it but wow it’s sooo good.

I’m actually listening to the new Skillet that came out today, I’m a little worried that this one won’t get listened to much until I’m sick of the Outsiders which I feel bad about since I really do like Skillet though I am discovering that they’re a little more angsty than what my tastes are evolving into.

Either way I’ve got so much good new music to listen to lately! I’ve got these two plus I picked up some Panic! At the disco, as well as the new All Star Unites album. I confess though I think I grew up faster than ASU did haha.

Anyway, that’s me today, now off to work

So looks like this is my first attempt and making a poetry podcast, we’ll see how this works out! Don’t get mad at me if it doesn’t work well. There should be a link up allowing you to subscribe to my Podcast through iTunes… as soon as I figure out how to do that.

Oh and this is a poem I wrote forever ago called When You Smile. It goes like this…

You’re pretty when you smile,

Or handsome, beautiful,

Gorgeous or we’ll just say pretty.

You’re pretty when you smile.

When you look into the sun,

Or the wind blows your hair,

When you smile,

When your eyes get big,

Or squint just to see,

You look happy when you smile,

You’re pretty when you smile.

I’d take a picture,

Frame it for my desk,

Stick it in my wallet,

I’d take you everywhere with me.

I’d carry you in my iPhone,

And I’d show you off.

I’d look at you and smile,

You’re pretty when you smile.

There’s something to make me happy,

Oh something to make me glad.

Every time I picture you,

You’re so pretty when you smile,

Handsome, maybe beautiful,

Whatever you are, it’s when you smile.

So maybe I’m foolish,

Unwise, perhaps.

But every time you smile at me,

I wonder if you see something I can’t.

Maybe you’re thinking,

I’m pretty when you smile.

I thought a lot yesterday, not always great thoughts I don’t think.  Actually I was really lonely yesterday, I called up a few people to see if anyone wanted to get together and grab some food, but I really shouldn’t do that since all my friends are pretty busy.  I just really didn’t want to be alone yesterday but, I was.

It was good though, I got my mom’s new wordpress blog set up, and apparently all the people she works with love it.  She’s been doing like an email news letter for the last, forever about how she wants to get the present of her company onto the Oprah show and stuff.  Anyway so the president of her company asked her to transition it to a blog, and was like, “I’m sure your son could set you up.”  I’m like… grrr… worst part is she’s right.

Anyway, so yah, I’ve been thinking a lot lately, I’m tempted to finally start that podcast I’ve been thinking of.  I also wrote a poem last night for the first time in forever.

But yah yesterday I was feeling super emo.  Today I just worked, well I didn’t so much work as I existed at the store, I sold one thing and I got yelled at by a lady with massive mental health issues.  Anyway…

I kind of wanted to make a post tonight, but I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to.  I think more than anything I wanted to feel connected since I feel kind of disconnected right now.

Didn’t need a name, didn’t need a label,
But I think I liked you.
The way you smiled, when you saw me smile,
Not sure, but, I think.
Barely knew your name, but I knew it,
You barely knew my story, but you knew it.
Didn’t need a name, but I think we knew it.
Confused, if we wanted to give it a label,
Frustrated, is a name I could call it.
Was like a break from reality,
A few hours out of the noise,
It was like something you could name,
And I know I liked it.
Smile like an honest politician,
And you know I’d melt every time.
Didn’t need a name, didn’t need a label.
And I’m sure tonight I miss you.

Hey all, how goes it?  So I had Church this morning, and it was pretty good.  Actually I confess this morning in general was frustrating simply because I awoke to a really rude message on Facebook from someone accusing me of being rude.  (It’s interesting how so many people can’t express offense without themselves becoming huge pricks.)  So it was kinda weird hearing a sermon about the beatitudes and realizing that in a lot of senses I’ve really stopped being the person I used to be.  I used to always strive to do the right thing, the last year or so I think I’ve learned to be selfish, and while I don’t know that I enjoy people taking advantage of me, apparently it’s no more enjoyable to call people out for being jerks… so essentially unless one can surround themselves with some really quality friends you’re condemned to just be frustrated with life… or perhaps that’s just me?

Either way though Church was good this morning, this is one of the graphics I drew, it’s called “At the end of my burning rope.”  It accompanies a song of the same name that I found out Marc at Church wrote.  He came up to me afterward and we were chatting and he mentioned how this week he did have songs with images in them, (I’d earlier quipped that all his songs always centered around abstract theological concepts which it turns out are really hard to draw.)  He said he’d been wondering what I’d draw for the song, and I was like, where’d you find that song anyway I really liked it.  Turned out he’d written it.

It’s a good song, I’d post the lyrics but I’m pretty tired.  I confess I kinda identify with it in a lot of ways.  It’s about relying on God when everything seems wrong.  I confess though that lately my reliance on God has been a lot less pronounced lately.  As I wrote earlier I’m not entirely sure how much of my faith is left.  While I will readily say that I love God, and at some points I do still feel very close to Him.  At the same time after this year with everything that happened with Adullam and realizing just how little I can rely on the people in my life, I’m not really sure how much I trust God.

I mean if I were discussing or debating with someone I’d surely work under the assumption that God was true, and reliable and faithful and all that jazz.  But when it comes to my experience lately things really seem to have shifted.

There’s some times when I still feel like going and doing profound and big things for God, at the same time I sometimes wonder if I could even get through another day of pastoring like I did at Adullam, I just really am not sure what’s left in me to give to “OTHERS.”  I mean I still have something to give to the people in my life, but even there there’s a lot less.  I mean a few years ago something like this morning would have been a small road bump in a friendship and I’d get over it.  Now I just look at it and say, “What am I getting out of this?”  And the answer tends to be, “Not enough to make it worth it.”  And I’ve been saying that about a lot of friendships lately.  But the thing is… it’s true.  I have  a few friends in my life who are great to have close friendships with, and I have a few who are great to have distant friendships with, but I have such a bad habit of wanting to be there for people who are total jerks to me… and I’m really left asking why bother?

I imagine Jesus would have something else to say, but as I’ve said before I’m not entirely sure how much I care anymore… I imagine that’s bad.  But it’s where I am.

Hey all, just on the 16 headed in to work. It’s funny cause Danielle txted me the other day saying she figured out why I was always so depressed and she said it was because I listened to so many sad songs. It’s funny because while certain sad songs might not always help I don’t think that really was it.

Since I got my transfer I’ve been feeling worlds better. I get to sleep in a bit more which is cool, and the biggest thing is that I leave work with a sense of accomplishment. It feels pretty good to know that you solved someone’s problem with one phone, and helped another pick out a new phone that they’re going to be using every day. Not to mention that in general it’s rarely boring there, and there is almost always something to be doing.

I’m really also enjoying being able yo say “I told you so!” with my deeds. For a long time people have said I’m not a mall store person, and that I should be happy with my small out ofthe way store. It just feels really good to be able to say look you put me centre stage and I’m doing a kick ass job! In general I tend to think thing through a lot better than a lot of people out there and it’s nice to be able to prove that with a few exceptions I tend to be right a lot of the time.

Hmmmm, so just so we’re clear I do plan on blogging about a few topics in the future. I think I’ll blog about various albums that you as my friends and staplers should consider purchasing. I’m also going to talk a bit about the rumblings in the technology industry and the coming computer OS wars where you will see Google going head to head with Microsoft

Hey all. So I’m riding the 16 right now. I gotta say they couldn’t make transit schedules more confusing if they tried. Anyway, lost my headphones so this is probably gonna be the most boring bus ride ever. Oh well I imagine I’ll get by. I’m just not looking forward to buying new headphones especially since I’m gonna want some with a mic in them.

In other news, I’m on my way to work at the Kiosk, my transfer has finally gone through and I’m enjoying the change of pace a lot more. It’s good cause you can talk to people all day. It is frustrating cause fewer people come in for sure knowing they want a phone, but my sales on Saturday were pretty dang good!

I’m still getting used to this bus trip, I’m never quite sure how long it’s gonna take me to get to work. Last time I gave myself 40 minutes and I got there a half hour early. This time it should be a little closer so we shall have to see

Oh and isn’t this wordpress blog freaking sweet? I mean I can blog from my phone again as well as have Anyone log in with their facebook account which is also pretty cool since last time I had comments on my blog I got a lot of trolls. This time people are less likely to be using psudeonims.

Anyway, not sure what else I have to say, so I guess I’ll just enjoy the bus ride to work. Hope you all have a great day!

So I recently drew this for Church, I confess I actually slept in through Church today for the first time in months, mainly because I was really tired after hanging out with Logan and his friends yesterday.  I don’t know for sure that they used this since the woman who was doing slides today last time I sent her the graphics to use didn’t use them so I’m not entirely sure it got used.  Anyway it was for a song that talked about how Jesus is closer than a brother etc etc etc.  I really like the image though.

Well, I suppose this will be my first post on my brand new Blog that I set up. If I have any readers left you’ll notice a few things. Firstly this isn’t SmolderingReformation.com when I named my last site I was kinda bitter, and burnt out. While I’m still brunt out I’m a lot less bitter. This name derives itself from actually a screen name I made for an online dating site… for the record… dating, especially online dating sucks… but I really liked the phrase/name. So I think I’m gonna keep it. I’ve been debating exactly how I wanted to proceed on the blogging front. Really the blogging experience is pretty dependent on your tools. I used Blogger for years, but decided to shut down my old blog at pastoralwannabe.blogspot.com and start up my new then, now old site smolderingreformation.com. Basically I moved from Blogger a tool developed and hosted by Google, to iWeb hosted on my own hosting account. Needless to say there were a few trade offs. iWeb allowed a greater degree of flexibility over how each page might look, but it really failed in allowing me to automate just about anything. It handled RSS and that was about it. It let you position anything you wanted anywhere on the page (which if you’re used to web design, is a HUGE thing!) But ultimately I had to simply say really iWeb isn’t the tool for me. That and I really wanted to have a TDL (Top Level Domain) that was a bit more fun and quirky and less depressed and emo. Also as with all my ventures, I decided to create this new site, ThreeShadesofAwesome.com I thought of perhaps 3shadesofawesome.com but then I realized I’d have to tell people the number three and they’d get confused.

Anyway, there are a few major pluses with this one.  Firstly I can blog from anywhere, there’s a WordPress app for my iPhone that I can connect and blog any and everywhere from.  You’ll probably see a few short entries from the bus and what not like I used to do on my old blog.  Plus since WordPress is a script running on my own server I can do whatever I want with it, as well it’s exceptionally extensible through what seems like a great plugin architecture.  For example I already added a plug in that will allow you to login using your Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, or MySpace profiles… though if anyone logs in with a MySpace profile I swear I’m gonna call you dirty!

Anyway, so yah you can check out the site, let me know what you think… actually no you can’t cause I haven’t really told anyone about it.  Maybe once I edit the theme a bit I shall!

Well everyone, welcome… this message is to fill a place and what not.