The Thinkulum

Hello. I’ve been kinda busy the last three weeks! Here are some highlights.

– I finally finished reading the Sluggy Freelance archives, and it is now tied with GPF as the best webcomic in the universe, or it’s a close 2nd. It was kind of depressing to realize I wouldn’t be able to sit and read it for hours anymore, but then I remembered that I wanted to read MegaTokyo, and that cheered me up. It’s putting me in the mood for anime.

– My programming tasks at work continue to expand, which is great. People are starting to bog me down with editing stuff, but a lot of times I can turn those into programming jobs too. 😉 Eventually I will work my way into every aspect of the company. They won’t be able to operate without me, and the place with be mine!!!! Hahahahahahaaaaaaaa! Okay, not really. Running the whole company would take too much work.

– My brother Michael came back from France the Wednesday before last and has been staying at my apartment. Mostly we’ve been watching DS9. We’ve gotten through the whole first season. I’ve also gotten him hooked on TheologyWeb. Tomorrow he’s moving into his new place.

– Our mom came to visit us last Thursday and stayed until today (well, technically yesterday). It was nice having her here. Friday we went to see Batman Begins (which I’d already seen but enjoyed the second time, too), and Saturday we went to the Macaroni Grill with our friends from our old church. She also helped Michael with his car shopping, which was a relief to me. Since I had bought a car for the first time earlier this year and this was also his first car buying experience, somehow I felt responsible for making sure he knew what he was doing and made a good decision. I felt like I was buying a car all over again. I took him for his first test drive, but she went with him the rest of the time, and not being there for all that took the load off my mind. It seems to be turning out okay.

– Today for lunch we went to the Cracker Barrel, which was a surreal experience. I didn’t know there was one in the area. The Cracker Barrel for our family has always been a Southern road trip restaurant. I felt like we must be in Tennessee on our way to visit relatives. It was weird to realize I could just go there anytime. And the country ambience seemed very out of place in the Chicago suburbs!

– Today I also got to see my friend Tim again. He’s so busy these days that it’s hard even to get ahold of him. But his schedule is more relaxed this month. We watched part of Metropolis, but we got started late and didn’t finish it.

– Last week via an office birthday party I discovered Dove ice cream bars. They’re vanilla ice cream covered by a thick shell of dark chocolate! Yum!!! So I’ve been buying them to share with people. If you try some, get the kind with “Original DOVE® Chocolate.” That’s the dark chocolate kind.

– The week before last a book I ordered two months ago finally came in the mail. It was pretty much my own fault, though. I ordered it over Amazon and accidentally had the seller send it to my old address. The post office forwarded it to my current address, but for some reason I didn’t see the slip telling me to pick it up, so it got sent back to the seller. Meanwhile I was writing back and forth with the seller trying to resolve things. He was going to send me another copy, but then the book reached him and he mailed it back to me, with the correct address this time. So now I have it: From Minister to Honest Doubter: How I Changed My Mind by John Loftus. He has a similar educational background to mine, so it’ll be interesting to read his arguments. I found out about it through TWeb, and JP Holding has already posted his rebuttal/ridicule page. I want to finish reading the book before reading it though.

My brother’s coming back to the US today! He’s been teaching English in France for the last nine months. His plane gets here at 6:30, and I’ll be picking him up from the airport. Then he’s going to stay with me for about a week before moving into wherever he’s going to live this year. I’m happy. 🙂

Today I want to give you an idea of what my life is like so you’ll be able to place my individual entries in the context of the big picture.

I am not an exciting person. I live by myself in a plain, rather messy apartment; I have few friends in the area; I rarely go out and do anything; and I’m very quiet. I don’t usually think of myself as quiet because there’s plenty of activity going on in my mind, but somehow everyone around me ends up talking a lot more than I do. So this blog will not be filled with tales of my adventurous nights out on the town. It will largely be filled with tales of my adventures inside my head.

A typical day starts with me getting up later than I should because I’ve usually stayed up too late the night before, and then kicking myself for being late to work. Fortunately my job doesn’t usually depend on keeping particular hours, and my employer is mostly forgiving. I work as an editorial assistant at a Christian book packager, which is kind of like a publisher except we don’t stock books, market, or sell them. What we do is to help publishers get things done. Sometimes it’s just typesetting or editing; sometimes it’s the whole book. A lot of times we come up with an idea for a book and see if anyone wants to publish it. Then we put it together and hand it off to them.

My job as an editorial assistant isn’t a very typical one. From what I’ve read, most editorial assistants aren’t much more than office assistants with a little proofreading thrown in. Well, we have office assistants for that, and our project managers do a lot of the office work themselves. So I actually get to edit things. Mostly it’s copyediting and proofreading. Once in a while somebody asks me to write something, but I write so slowly that I try to avoid those kinds of assignments. And I also program, which doesn’t sound very editorial, but my programming is all oriented around editing-type functions. I really like the job when I have time to do the work. There’s a lot of variety in the things I get to do, my tasks are interesting, the place is well run, and I like the people. The only problem is that we’re often up against deadlines, and then I hate the job, but I’m learning how to deal with those cases.

In the evenings I try to make myself do whatever practical things need to be done, and then I spend the rest of the time hanging out on the Internet and working on my projects, which usually involve reading and writing. Occasionally I watch a movie or play a video game. And sometimes I talk to my family or friends on the phone. Most of my friendships are long-distance because they’re with people from my high school or college days who are now scattered about the country, and in some cases the world.

On Sunday mornings I go to church. I’ve recently started going to a new one. My plan was to find someplace where I felt like I could plant myself and get involved during the time that I live in this area. I think this is the most likely place for that, but for various reasons I’m finding it difficult to get past being a seat warmer.

My projects and my relationships are what I consider my “real life.” These are the parts of my life that feel the most permanent and fulfilling to me. They reach down to the core of my being and support me and clarify the meaning and direction of my life. So when I have news to share, it will most often be about those. And of course, my projects are the subject of the site as a whole.

I am right now doing the final check of the pages of a book before we send it off to the printer. I’m the last person who will see it before it gets set in stone! Should I delete some pages? hehe

I just got off the phone with my old friend Aaron! (He’s probably reading this–hi, Aaron!) I haven’t talked to him in years! He was one of the first people I met at college, and we’ve been good friends ever since. After college he went off to study in England and we sort of lost touch, and I had been procrastinating on e-mailing him, but today he made that unnecessary by calling me! Ah, it’s so good to get back in touch with people.

Oh, and Aaron … don’t forget to go here!

Actually I got back Sunday night. The weekend wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be, as usual, and instead I had a nice time. It was good to see a lot of my old friends from college and meet a few new people and to see some people from my old church who live in my area but who I never visit. I didn’t get to stay for the reception because I goofed in my planning, but I was around for all the other important parts of the weekend.

John and Lisa are quite a pair. I was trying to think of what the highlight of the weekend was for me, and I realized that all of it was the highlight. They really know how to put together a meaningful event. At least I know John does because he’s always been that way. I don’t know Lisa as well, although she’s the kind of person who, once you meet her, you feel like you’ve known all your life. John’s probably that way, too.

The summary: Friday night, guys’ night out. Saturday morning, picnic. Saturday evening, rehearsal. After the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner avec stories about John and Lisa (if I had to pick a highlight, it would be this). Sunday afternoon, wedding pictures with their super-efficient photographer. After that, wedding (in which I was a groomsman). After that, airport (instead of reception).

Tomorrow I’ll be on a plane to Colorado to be in my friend John’s wedding. Weddings are good things and all, but this weekend is going to be stressful. I’ll be glad when it’s over, to be honest. But I will get to stay with my other friend Cam, who lives in the same city and will also be in the wedding. That should be a relaxing element.