Supafly.com

One of the reasons why I stopped traveling was because I wanted to slow down and experience new things. Plus, I had a sinking feeling that my busy life was spinning out of control. It was just going by too fast for my own good.

One fun part of slowing down is finding new things online. So in the past couple months, these are my new online treasures:

1. MySpace.com: I know I’m one of the last people my age to go onto MySpace, but it’s pretty easy to avoid social networking sites when you are engaged to be married. But I figured its a cultural phenomenon, and I know little about it. So last week I kick-started with http://myspace.com/nomoho. Since then, I’ve been tweaking my layout to make it look fresh and different. But the most rewarding thing is how people have found me through MySpace. So far I’ve reconnected with a couple friends from college and some folks that I’ve met on the road. This is going to be fun.
2. Google Calendar: This online calendar is so handy and easy-to-use. In my previous life, I kept my calendar at work because that’s the only life I had. But I always felt helpless and foolish when I had to sort out dates at the end of the night. Now that I’m getting my life back, it’s nice to have an online calendar with so I can sort out all of my appointments, travel, and reminders. At any moment of the day, I can login and get a grasp on the next two months of my life. I don’t have to worry about missing something and letting someone down.;;
3. Del.icio.us: This is handy online archive of my bookmarks that I jumped into a few days ago. I hate clutter, so I quit bookmarking sites several years ago. (Okay, so maybe I marked the best, but that’s less than a dozen.) But it sucks because sometimes there is an interesting website, but I would end up letting it go for the sake of browser cleanliness. But with Del.icio.us, I can bookmark anything and everything. And they all remain neatly organized. But the best part about it is looking at what similar websites people have bookmarked. It’s essentially a community-nominated search engine, but the results are unparalleled. I found some really handy Ajax sites this afternoon that really got my creativity spinning.;
4. Craigslist.com: Some of my friends live on this site. So of course, I avoided it because I didn’t’ want to get suckered into someone else’s inferior interest. But I take all that back now because Craigslist is a bargain-finders dream come true. It’s the best local classified ads out there. As of this week, these are the things I’m looking for: sturdy outdoor furniture, travertine tile, anything chrome, a Chevy 350 engine, and a bed frame. It’s so much better than skimming the ads in the paper because the Craigslist.com actually has pictures, and that can save me from a long drive across town, only to be disappointed.
5. Itunes.com: It’s not really a website, but I’m excited to be using iTunes. I’ve imported all of my old CDs so I can get rid of them.

Since I work on the Internet all day, having new tools makes a big difference. But what’s more rewarding is knowing that my life isn’t spinning out of control. Getting organized online makes the rest of my life more manageable. Actually, I don’t think that it does. I’m sick of having to remember account numbers, user names, and passwords. I counted this afternoon, and I have 19 different places that I have to remember all that crap. It takes a significant part of my brain just to not forget all of those passwords.

I think the modern life is out of control. Who the hell started to promote “multi-tasking” as a solution to life? I’m tired of doing two things at once. Yet, when I take it one thing at a time, I feel like an underachiever…like the world is passing me by. My attention span is all but gone.

I Tivo “Law & Order” because it is smart, exciting, and entertaining. Without the commercials to watch, I can get in whole hour-long episode in about 40 minutes. But last night during a 15-second lull in the plot, I impulsively opened my phone to play a game. I snapped out of it a minute later, and I became embarrassed—all alone in my living room. I’ve been suckered into this culture. It’s making me miserable. I think this is why my mom and dad gave up the big city life to run a farm in the rural South.

I’ve spent the last two days in some intense meetings about the future of Life Teen. With Randy as our new president, it’s like the whole organization is opening up the doors and letting new air in. Once the fresh air comes in, you see how stuffy the organization had become. It’s not that what we were was bad, but we’re all realizing that there are better ways to do ministry.

So we’re all ready for change, but change doesn’t happen over night. I’ve been in a half-dozen meeting about changes. Sometimes during the meeting, I feel like I’m just wasting my time. But once the day’s done, I can see how it was an important step.

Today was Candyce’s family’s last full day in Arizona before they drive back to California.;Danny is staying here because he’s about to start his freshman year of college. That means there will be just four kids in the house that used to be packed with seven. I even think Lauryn and Carrie might get their own bedroom for this school year.

I know how much is sucks to know that school is starting when you are a kid, so I tried to make today real fun for Matt and Carrie by inviting them over to play in the pool. It’s fun to play with little kids because all they want to do is have fun with me. It’s so freeing to know that all I have to do is make them feel good about themselves. I was excited about their games, their jumps off the diving board, and their underwater adventures. Nothing else mattered.

I can’t forget that most of my anxieties come from my success. Anxieties about bills, investments, job opportunities—all of these are the concerns of someone who is in a good place. My college loans are paid off. I’m in good health and have no medical bills. I’m not in any life-sucking lawsuits or legal troubles. I’m not tangled in a drug or alcohol addiction. No run-ins with the mafia either. I’m not paying the ransom for a kidnapped family member.

I think of all of the violence and unrest in other societies throughout the world. Families don’t know if they will be alive at the end of the day. Wondering how to pay a high electric bill would be a true blessing, because that would mean that they had a house in a community with infrastructure. It would mean that their currency was worth something. Plus, you need electricity because you have things you need to operate. Paying an electric bill is privilege.

I have anxiety about keeping up with all that’s going on around me because I do have a lot going on in life. This is an absolute contrast to the my life when as I was growing up in a small town. Then my worries were wrapped up in the feeling that the rest of the world was moving on without me. Now I’m apart of that world that is moving, and I just have to be man enough to deal with it.

Last night was the engagement party for me and Candyce. She and her mom took care of planning the food throughout the week. My job was to call everyone and get the house ready. So most of my week was committed to straightening out a house that still isn’t ready to be lived in. We scrambled up until the doorbell rang and the first guests stepped in.

It was wild. There must’ve been 80 people who came by through out the night. The party started at 6:15 PM with that first guest, and the last guest left at 1:45 AM. That’s a seven and a half hour party. It was great to have so many wonderful people in my home. So many brilliant, happy people. And they brought such simple but generous gifts, some in boxes, others in envelopes. I am blessed to have such great friends.

This was a new kind of party for me. I was never interested in high school parties, and college parties didn’t do much for me either. But inspite of my lack of interest, I’ve been to a bazillion parties. And very few of them were to celebrate anything of worth. Yeah it’s good to win the homecoming game, but is anyone’s life really different a week later? Then there are mindless fraternity parties which are just about getting girls, and anyone who disagress with me can’t see the truth in front of them.

So last night’s party was to celebrate something of substance–that Candyce and I are pledging to give our lives to one another. How amazing is that?

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This afternoon was crazy. I got uprooted out of my Saturday morning coffee to meet a Realtor at my old house because some people wanted to walk around and check it out. This derailed my schedule and set the path for the rest of the day. Not one thing happened today as I planned. I expected it to be a leisurely day after the big party last night, but instead it was spent zig-zagging across town and random manual labor in the hot August sun. Then another Realtor called… I’m boring myself just to think about it again, so I’ll avoid writing any more about my chores throughout the day.

In between showings I drove over to the parish to pray. My biggest prayer intentions have been for peace in the Middle East, for the capture of a serial killer in Phoenix, and that I would sell my house. It’s just good to sit in the chapel and put life in perspective. God is so big, and that is always so good. Bigger than my sin, my worries, bigger than me. So beautiful and holy. On my third trip to church this afternoon, I went to confession. Standing in line for confession is almost as humiliating as actually confessing my sins. I mean, we all know we are sinners. You go to church for that very reason. But it’s awkward to stand next to a stranger for 30 minutes with full knowledge that we all suck.

It’s about five in the afternoon now, and I just ate my first thing of the day. I think I’m just going to be a couch potato for the next couple hours. If people want to judge me for watching TV, that’s okay because they do not have Tivo, so they can not understand that this is a different kind of TV. I’m going to finish this journal and watch back-to-back commercial-free episodes of Miami Vice. How awesome is that?

It’s been a crazy week since I got back from San Diego on Saturday. It’s a great feeling to get my Phoenix life back together.

Last night the Oertle boys helped me move some furniture from my old house to my new house. I kept it there over the summer because it helped “stage” the home for a potential buyer. That’s the kind of thing I learned from watching too many shows on HGTV. It was kind of cool to see how much stuff I could load into my Honda Element. I fit a table on the roof, five wooden chairs along with a big leather loveseat inside. How awesome is that? I felt pretty cool because I used some Boy Scout knots to tie it all down securely. I couldn’t have done those knots had I not practiced a few weeks ago out in California.

I finished the night by watching an episode of the “A-Team”, my favorite TV show from my childhood. Well, I don’t know if it was my favorite show, but that and “MacGyver” were my favorite shoes to watch with Dad. We’d make popcorn, settle in the couch, and watch an hour of mindless adventure. This episode was hysterical because it was set in Miami Beach back when it was filmed in the 80s. All the guys had on short shorts, many of which were plaid. (Just like my dad’s back when we went on family vacations.) And the girl’s waist lines on their jeans came up almost to their bra. It was hysterical. (And there are no mountains in Miami Beach, so I’m guessing it was filmed in LA.)

Seeing stylish clothes from past decades is not new to me. I’ve worn vintage clothes for most of my life. But watching an old TV show and experiencing that era again was so much fun. This isn’t someone else’s memories, they are mine!

All of this is happening as I am finally importing all of my old CDs into iTunes, a very 2000s thing to do. Most of my friends did this years ago, but I’ve been so busy traveling, all I’ve done is pack and unpack the CD stacks as I’ve moved around the country. But I know I’ll be in this house for at least a few years, so it’s time to make ‘em all MP3s. Most of these CDs I imported into iTunes were given to me by bands that I’ve met on the road, or sent to me by record labels. So these are all CDs produced in the MP3 era. It’s just bizarre to look at a stack of CDs and know that they are worthless to most people. My case of 300 CDs in high school let everyone know so much about me. I love music! I like cool bands! I know about cool things! Now I will try to sell them to a CD store for $50.

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Tomorrow is the engagement party for me and Candyce. For most of this week, her family has been fretting about the food and drinks while I’ve been straightening up the house. Although I’ve only spent a few evenings cleaning up the house, it already feels like twice as much like home than it did five days ago when I got back.

At work some exciting things are happening. We got a huge response from people who want to write reviews for the website. Most of them seem like pretty solid writers. It’s been pretty cool because a couple of them are already writing, sending me their copy. This means I have less work to do. I just make minor edits, format the images, and then post the review. But the more rewarding aspect of the project has been getting to know cool people through the website. These are people who believe in what we are doing, and they want to help. It feels great.