Stuffs

I got my hair cut.

But I'm tired.

So you don't get to see it yet.

Deal.

zzZZzz

Joes Goals

I've started using Joes Goals again to keep track of those daily things that are important to me, but aren't always urgent enough to make the cut. Things like working out, getting outside, reading the Word, etc. As a little incentive, at the end of the day I give myself one quarter for every check I get. Those quarters go to my disposable income fund since the rest of my disposable income is going towards my next car. If you're curious as to how well I'm doing, check out the neat little chart to the right ->
- John

Keep In Touch With the Family

Most of us have some sort of desire to keep in touch with our families more. We know we should, but where does one find the time? When you're so busy picking between junk and things people want you to do in your inbox, who thinks about emailing or picking up the phone to call their family? Lifehacker featured a website a week ago that helps us do just that, and so much more! Geni is a geneology website that also doubles as a familial networking site. Enjoy sites like Facebook or Myspace? Geni will help you connect to your family, without all the troublesome spam of unwanted friend requests or application requests. It also allows you to map out your family tree! Check it out, it's really cool!

This Summer

I was recently approached by the leader of my bible study group. He had an idea for a communal living project in Hamtramck. One three story house, six guys, and I'd be the organizational leader. What a fantastic opportunity!

Network+

I just placed my order for my Network+ study material. It should be coming soon. I am excited. That is all.

Lent

It's the Lenten season again, and for the first year ever I'm going to give something up. I realized that Jesus went out in the desert for 40 days to be tempted so that he could be our blameless offering that sets us free, so the least I can do as a follower is try to meet him there. Video games are a huge part of my life, and this year, for 40 days, I shall not play them. It was only after I made that commitment that I realized that I have a LAN party (tons of video games) planned for smack dab in the middle of the 40 days. This poses a potential issue, but I might be able to get away with simply administrating.

Update: Matt's going to buy me a round if I make it the whole time, hah hah!

Changes, Improvements, and Undertakings

A lots happened in the past few days. I accepted a new position within my company, a promotion one would call it if it were a corporation. I passed my Microsoft Certification. I got a raise. I have more and new responsibilities. I made the decision to go back to college and get my degree. I accepted a position on a mission team to Amsterdam. I got a new phone. I was asked to be the Best Man in my bud's wedding. I'll be hiring and training employees for my company.

Needless to say, that's been a lot to process. I must admit, that I'm very intimidated by that list. A week ago it would have drove me into a depressive state where I would deny my ability to do any of the above list and I would start to "simplify" my life by uncommiting my self to as many as I could. After passing my Microsoft Certification, which I've been stressing over for the past 4 years, I learned that hard work won't kill me. I learned that I can do anything. What a freeing experience. So, now I'm off to figure out logistics :)

I am.

If you have it together, do not read this post. If you know everything and could never possibly make a mistake, this post is not for you. For the rest of us in the real world, hi.

My name is John. I am human. I am weak. I suffer. I fail.

I overeat when I'm depressed. I do not feel adequate in my career. I do not feel handsome. I am misunderstood, unappreciated, and unloved. I don't want to talk about where I came from, I don't like where I am, and I don't know where I'm going. Sticks and stones break my bones, and words will always hurt me. I sin, I lust, I am self centered. I am overworked and underpaid. People expect what I cannot deliver.

This is the human condition. You are not weird, or different. You are not any less able to cope with reality. The truth is, in this world, there is trouble. (John 16:33) Jesus doesn't mince words. How would you feel if just one person offered interest in your life? What if one person really cared? Maybe they don't understand the situation you're going through, but they really cared. They listened, and didn't judge. I'm willing to bet such a simple act could change your life. What if we decided to care about one person's pain? What if we decided to listen and not judge? What if we realized that we are all human and are all in this together?

One simple step. The next time you see someone in pain, doesn't matter if you know them, just ask them if they care to talk. If they don't, that's fine, at least someone cared enough to ask. If they do, great! LISTEN! DON'T JUDGE! It doesn't matter if you would respond differently, allow them to be human, just care!

Thanksgiving 2007

Marisa and I went to Colorado to visit my folks for Thanksgiving this year. We were only there for a few days, and we did not do much other than sit around, making this one of the best vacations I have had the good fortune of enjoying. I have not seen my family since Christmas last year. It was so great to see them. It is such a joy to see how my sister is growing. She will make a fine woman. I also find immense joy in watching my parent's relationship grow and mature. Colorado has done my family well. I was able to experience my Mother's chickens over the weekend. I never realized how much fun chickens could be. I had a lot of fun, and I miss everyone terribly already.


Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jschavey/Thanksgiving2007

PS: Most of them are of Moose, the new kitten. He's addictively cute.

Hi

A buddy of mine commented on how long it's been since I've blogged. I'm not sure what to say. Life is pretty confusing, and as always I feel it's my responsibility to figure it out. This will most likely lead to life of much frustration and anxiety, but hopefully I'll come out of it with something that I can share with everyone I meet.

I've been at a bit of a plateau on my spiritual walk lately.l I decided to surrender my life wholly to God and let him have the reigns, which was nice at first because I stopped thinking about everything I felt I had to do. But then I couldn't help but be confused about how anything was supposed to happen in my life if I wasn't doing anything.

So I think it's time to try a new perspective. What if we are supposed to move our lives in a direction, and the person that adds the strength and guidance is Jesus? What if we're like spiritual mech warriors? Sure, we're "driving", but the mech is doing all the work ;) It's weird, because as soon as I started visualizing this, I do indeed feel the presence of Jesus in a much more tangible way than I have before.

So that's my blog. Nothing really of any use to anyone but me, after all, they are just my own personal reflections on spirituality, but hey, it was requested ;)

Will Power and Self Discipline - Experiment

After a week of 12 hours works day and immense stress, I find myself wanting a vacation. Good thing I leave for Alaska in a week. Unfortunately, my body says it needs a vacation now which makes it difficult to get any work done. My room is a bigger mess than it has been in months, the house is a wreck, and I can't even bring myself to make anything more complicated than Fruit Loops for breakfast. Good thing I made all my lunches on Monday. Anyhow, I've noticed a pattern of this type reoccuring in my life. I work really hard for a week or two, taking no breaks, then I realize I'm human and need breaks and don't do any work for a week. Normally that week would be a very depressing time for me as I kick myself for not doing anything and then wallow is self loathing. This week I've decided to accept that I am human and not fight myself over it. So after sitting in the shower for a half hour allowing myself to enjoy the water rushing over me while I just wasted time and analyzing this new realization I decided I couldn't get a good enough grasp of what was going on on my own. So I turned to God for understanding. After some complex processing which included a few flashbacks I concluded to do some research on developing discipline. The first couple sites I read were indeed exactly what I was looking for, so off I go on a journey of self exploration in the areas of Willpower and Self Discipline.

Business Ownership - End

Well, I consistently worked 12 hour days making posting not very possible. I must admit that I also didn't really want to. I was having too much fun. I know I have a lot to learn until I can get to the point where I can be successfully running my own business, but this little test run was a good experience for me. It certainly puts to test my organizational system, which I am delighted to say passed with flying colors. Through this experiment I now have a better grasp of what I need to accomplish before I can get to where I want to be, which gives me goals to work towards.

On a side note, I leave for my Alaska mission trip in about a week. I am totally frightened and excited. For those of you who pray, please be praying for the team and me and the people in Alaska. Stay tuned for pictures and stories.

Morning Blues

I wanted to prove to everyone once and for all that you do not have to be a morning person to get up early every morning. If I had my way, I would probably wake up no later than noon everyday and stay up until well past midnight. In fact, that's what I did for the first several years after high school. However, I soon realized that it was indeed beneficial for me to get up early each morning and by golly I was going to figure out how to do it. So I did :) After a week or so of sleep deprivation and a strict cardio regiment, I was able to figure out what I needed to be an early riser. Here are some pretty universal tips to get you started.

1. Get up at the same time, every day, no matter what. This gets your body used to a schedule, sets your body's internal clock, so to speak. After your pretty set in your schedule, it's not so important, I let myself sleep in on weekends, though that's still rarely past 7, and never past 8.

2. Realize that your body is just waking up. Of course you're tired. The only way you're going to get the energy to start your day is to start your day. Get moving. Doing something, anything. I personally needed some extra energy so I opted for a 5 minute jog. That 5 minutes changed my entire daily schedule. It had taken me an hour and a half to get out of bed and shower. The day I added a 5 minute jog I had jogged, showered, eaten two breakfasts, made my lunch and processed my entire inbox in that same time.

3. It helps to go to bed at the same time each night. It's not entirely necessary for me. I can go about two weeks with a messed up sleep schedule before I need to really buckle down and get my body back into shape.

4. Figure out how much sleep you need each night, and schedule for it. I work best on 8 hours of sleep. As soon as I get that much, I tend to wake right up. I can go about a week on 7 nightly, a few days on 6 nightly, and can squeak by on 5 hours if I make sure to catch up the next day. Everyone is different though, and you won't be able to know what you can handle, until you adjust yourself to the right amount.

Honestly, it's not hard. It's certainly work, but it's not hard. As long as you realize that the human body will adapt to anything you give it, you'll be fine. Sure, some people function better in the morning than others, but that doesn't mean it's not possible for you to wake up at a decent hour. Take hope :)

Business Ownership - Day 1

The guy who gives me most of my work went on his honeymoon to Greece yesterday, leaving me to field all of the calls and make all of the executive decisions. Can you say "AHHHH!!!!!"? Twelve work hours, 300 minutes over my cell phone limit, 200 miles driven, and one quart of sweat later, I can honestly say, it went really well. There is no better way to test yourself than under such fire and I can say now that I look forward to the rest of the ten days that I will in charge. Today was a day to be proud of, I think I'll go celebrate by running Day 3 of my 30 minute training program.

Air Cooling

I was playing Oblivion the other day when my computer shut down. Odd. So I rebooted it, played some more and 5 minutes later it shut down again. I checked the temperature of my computer, they were, shall we say, alarming:

CPU: 41/65 Idle/Load
System: 62/71 Idle/Load
GPU: 77/125 Idle/Load

Now, for all of you non-power users, computer temperatures are usually stated in Celsius, which means my GPU could boil water (257F). That's obviously a problem, GPUs shoudln't hit much hotter than 80C, 90 could fry it.

Ok, so starts the troubleshooting process.

Step 1: Freak out and jump on the excuse to get a new 8800 *drools*
Step 2: Buyer's remorse when I realize that I'm getting the same problems with the new card
Step 3: Realize that I forgot to buy a high power PSU when I built the computer 3 years ago
At this point I'm getting my temperatures a bit lower, running still over 90C though.
Step 4: Realize I have never cleaned out the fans throughout the lifetime of the PC
Ok, so I cleaned out all the fans and now the temperatures were running at ok tresholds. But now that I've learned a few things, I decide that I'm not quite getting the performance I want out of my card. Time for some tweaking...
Step 5: Adjust the fans, they were for whatever reason all blowing into the case so I adjusted them to have some nice airflow.
Step 6: Leave case open and point gigantic high-powered room fan into the case.

Ahhhh.... That's what I was looking for. I can now run my Oblivion at a nice resolution, with all the nice extras like AA 4X. And my temperatures now?
CPU: 35//50
System: 35/40
GPU: 54/76

Life is good, now I wonder about liquid cooling dot dot dot

Today

Today has been fantastic. It's 80 degrees, I got to ride my bike, hell, I already hit my goal for calories burnt in a week! I also cleaned the house and ate really good meals. I switched to turkey bacon. It doesn't taste as good as regular bacon but I can get used to it, it's not really that bad. Just got finish up all my letters for Alaska and pray that I have enough money to last me this month.

Focus On Growth

I've found that as I go through life, it's important to keep focused on growth. I've found that it's also important to review what you have learned. Knowledge is meaningless if it's not applied. So I've decided to review two things that I've learned everyday. I focus on one technical, career related skill, and one world view/spiritual thing.

That being said, today I learned
1. When a computer is getting confused about which Access Point to connect to, it is best to remove all APs from the Preferred Network List and then reconnect.
2. Listen to your customers, if they're still freaking out even though you told them you would take care of it, they usually have some specific fear they are trying to address. If you listen for it, you can put their fears at ease and have a happy client. :)


Not only will focusing on growth help me develop better, it will give me some more content for my blog. :) I am making it a goal to publish at least what I've learned each day.

P.S. I just read NLP Presupposition: You Cannot Not Communicate and it reaffirms lesson number two. Sometimes what people are trying to say is hidden in a mess of emotional outburst. To be a true communicator, one must listen with more than their ears.

My Inner Turmoil

Sometimes I feel that life is a constant struggle between my inner Dilbert and my inner Buff Bufferman.

Boss: Dilbert, meet your new coworker, Buff Bufferman. Tell Dilbert what you do for fun.
Buff: I like to go rock climbing during blizzards. At the top, I wait for a pair of eagles to fly by. Then I leap off and grab them by the legs. The eagles sow my descent to the raging river below. I try to land on a floating log and surf the white water all the way home.
Dilbert: I use a keyboard.
Buff: Isn't that dangerous?
Dilbert: Sometimes I type all hunched over.
Buff: Ow! Ow! It hurts to hear it!

Happiness vs. Contentment

I often found myself depressed for long periods of time. The doctors shrugged it off as bi-polar and prescribed me a solution. It's been a few years since my last treatment and I've learned a lot. I find that my inability to be content with where I am is often the stemming of my depression. I also have found that contentment is a choice. I can either choose to complain that I had to work last night staying up until one in the morning and then have to get up early the next morning a gripe about having no sleep, or I can welcome the extra $100 in my pocket and pray for a restful slumber. One leaves me cranky and not performing on my game the next day, and the other leaves me in a state of gratitude and open to more. Appreciate and use your gifts wisely, you are more blessed than you know.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for the ability to give thanks.
I am thankful for my new living arrangments.
I am thankful for my mental health.
I am thankful for my physical well-being.
I am thankful all of my friends and the relationships I have shared over this past year.
I am thankful that I need nothing.
I am thankful for my family and the support they give no matter how far apart we are.
I am thankful that I am alive and productive.
I am thankful that I have recourses that I can share with others.

I believe it is important to take a moment and reflect on what we have. Society tells us that we never have enough, that we need to work harder for that next thing. I am thankful that I know better.