So…hows it going? As usual, its been a while. It is a bit tough to blog in my free time when I dont have Internet at home, but I have no excuse anymore. Im sitting on the couch in the bus on the way to Angola, Indiana. I have this wonderful contraption called an iPhone with a wonderful app called Wordpress, and thats what brings me to you today. I intend to invite you into my world more often with words and hopefully pictures as well. Micah and a friend of his have begun writing a book about growing up as pastors kids, and it made me wonder if Id ever reach a point in my life at which I felt like I had something worth writing (and worth reading). I figured maybe I could stir up the creative writing juices by reviving the ol blog. Ha…I think if you read the past number of posts, youll realize that Im a portrait of good intentions. How many times have I said Id be regular again? Anybody got some creative Metamucil?

It’s been almost 11 months since my last blog post, so I figured maybe it was about time I reappeared from under the cloak of silence. I still haven’t graduated from college. I still work at East Side Church of God. I still play in two country bands. So basically, not a whole lot has changed. I do live in a new house with a new roommate, however. Still only a block from campus, though.

Blogging effectively is tough for me. Maybe that’s why I haven’t attempted it in a while. Honestly, I’m not convinced anyone really cares about the chronicle of my life anyway. Plus, I’d rather experience life with people than tell them about it on my blog. That being said, I would like to come up with a purpose for this blog, rather than it just being a “here’s what I did today.” I suppose I could review music, but honestly I don’t get new stuff very often. I could share pictures, but normally that requires a camera. I could share interesting articles, links, and tidbits that I find on the web, but that sort of thing is better suited to Twitter or Tumblr, both of which I have. Am I at a loss for ideas? So far, yes. Now’s where you leave me a comment with your ideas for a purpose for this blog. Go!

Well, I’ve pretty much resigned to the thought that I could be a regular blogger.  As many times as I’ve said it, you’d think I’d follow through.  I shall henceforth be known as The Occasional Blogger, even if I’m the only one to ever refer to myself as such.  I probably could also call myself The Guy Who Complains About Not Blogging Enough Every Time He Does Blog, but that’s quite a mouthful, so let’s stick with the former, okay?

On to bigger and better things…

I am now once again a reader.  Well, that might be a bit of a stretch, but I’m getting there.  I remember a time when, if given the choice, I’d choose to read for fun.  My imagination was filled with the stories of the Boxcar Children and the Hardy Boys, not to mention Aslan and crew from the Chronicles of Narnia.  Unfortunately, those days ended when I started 5th grade at a new school.  Suddenly, I learned what homework was and forgot what reading was.  Well, now that I am no longer a student of any formal institution, I have the responsibility of making the choice to continue my education on my own.  I suppose that’s what life is all about, but I feel like I’ll probably benefit a bit more by being proactive about it versus just breezing on through.  So anyway, I thought I’d share a couple lists with you.  The first one is fairly short, a list of books I’ve been working on recently:

C.S. Lewis – A Grief Observed (completed), The Great Divorce, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (re-reading)
John Eldredge – Wild at Heart (completed)
Mark Batterson – In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day

I set aside The Great Divorce a while back, in favor of Wild at Heart, but now that it’s complete, I’ll get back to it.  I needed a break from deeply thoughtful reading, so I decided to invoke my imagination and re-read The Chronicles of Narnia.  I don’t have to sort through syntax to get to the meaning; I can just immerse myself in the story, and I love that.  Reading those books is like watching a movie to me.  Anyway, the second list is my “To read” list.  They’re just sitting there on my shelf, waiting for me.  We’ll see how long this takes.

Erwin McManus – The Barbarian Way
Becky Tirabassi – Sacred Obsession (for student ministries next fall)
John Piper – The Passion of Jesus Christ
Steve Brown – A Scandalous Freedom
Gene Edwards – A Tale of Three Kings (re-read)
Ron Owens – Return to Worship
Bill Hybels – Too Busy Not to Pray
Rory Noland – The Heart of the Artist (I’ve tried to read this a number of times and just never finished)
Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Supremacy (Same story here) and The Bourne Ultimatum
Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger – Simple Church
C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and the rest of The Chronicles of Narnia

I’m sure that list is incomplete, but those are all the books and I can think of at this point.  I’ve also been recommended The Shack, but I don’t have it, so I’ll have to borrow from someone.

Ok, I think that’s enough for today.  I need to leave in 20 minutes for Pendleton, and I want to get a chapter or two more done in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

For Narnia and for Aslan!

I was going to start out with a picture to show the new “Add Media” feature of Wordpress 2.5, but I think there are some issues with it.  Regardless, I’m enjoying the update.  I just hope they get a few things worked out.  Who knows, though.  It could be my host’s server.  I’m pretty much on very budget hosting.

On to bigger and better things.  How about that weather, eh?  LOVING IT.  I’m about to hop on my bike and kick it over to church for what is probably my 1,000,000th rehearsal in the last few weeks, but something (probably the weather) makes me not care a whole lot.  Even as I’m writing this, I’m realizing that I’m a pretty colloquial blogger.  I have other friends that feel it necessary to regale their readers with philosophic jargon, with which I have no problem, but I struggle to sift through it, and honestly, if I wanted that kind of reading, I probably wouldn’t be reading blogs.

I wrote the title to this post many days ago, but because of my aforementioned difficulties with the image, I never got around to writing it.  And now I find myself wondering where I had intended to go with “The World.”  So in lieu of that, I will actually sign off early, in hopes of keeping whatever base of readers I have left in less suspense in the near future (a.k.a. I hope to post again really soon).

Until next time.

Well, everyone…exciting news.  I got tags working.  I’m not sure what this means for either of us, but at least my Wordpress theme is that much more up to date.

Sometimes I have more of it, and sometimes I don’t.  It’s sad really.  I want to be a (much) more disciplined person.  Discipline is an incredible virtue.  Even something as simple as keeping my blog updated seems too much of a chore far too often.  I suppose whether the latest post was written within the last few months isn’t going to make or break me as a person, but I’d venture to say that it could be a fairly accurate representation of the level of motivation I have for other, more vital, activities, such as, say, finishing my graduation requirements, piano practice, songwriting, working out/eating healthy, and time with God.  Now, I now the word “motivation” implies some feeling that promises a positive result, and I realize that discipline has not much to do with feelings.  In fact, discipline, more often than not, acts in spite of feelings.  Maybe that’s where patience comes in.  I think I’d feel motivated if I had enough patience to wait for the reward.  But sadly, I often settle for “good enough.”  The funny thing, though, is that this isn’t a universal principle for me.  Sometimes I find myself so unwilling to settle for “good enough” that I don’t even try, either because I realize I’ll never achieve in that area or because I convince myself that I can if I wait long enough (i.e. “There’s something better out there for me.”).  I hope that makes sense.  I guess that this is sort an exploratory post, a pseudo-psychological expedition into the vast expanse that is the way I think and work.  It’s probably about time I do this.  It would be a shame if I went much longer without figuring myself out.

One thing I do know, however, is that I want to love people and love what I do.  Maybe therein lies my motivation.

Whisper to me
A story of yours
And please take your time
Each word I’ll absorb
Give me a chance
To write myself in
So I can be there
When you tell it again

If this were the chorus of a song, what do you think would be a good song title? “Whisper to Me”? “Write Myself In”? “Tell It Again”? Or some combination of those using a subtitle?

Well, according to my blog stats, I haven’t had a visitor to my actual blog site in quite a while, which makes me a bit sad. But maybe, just maybe, people are reading my blog on other sites like Facebook or Virb, which are set to import posts from this blog. Anyway, I recently got back from a trip to Florida with Cook and Belle. We played at the South Florida Fair…15 shows in 5 days. On the return trip, we detoured to Missouri where we played a show at the Missouri Association of Fairs and Festivals convention in hopes of booking summer gigs at Missouri county fairs. I’m pretty sure we’ve already got a pretty significant amount of summer gigs booked with a number of others in progress. In other related news, I’ve begun to play for another young female country artist. Her name is Casey Jamerson, and she’s from Pendleton. We’ve played a couple gigs at the Moon Dog Tavern on 96th Street in Indy, and there are at least a few more shows coming up in the next few months. It would be nice if her shows started to pick up in the fall, about the same time as Cook and Belle’s start to dwindle. That way, I could have a pretty solid few months of playing regularly. Anyway, I should probably get going. I’m hanging out with my friend Amy tonight (hopefully), and I’d like to run to Castleton and hit up Guitar Center as well as Best Buy. I need to replace a keyboard pedal at GC, and Best Buy has a great deal on an external hard drive.