Tag Archives: my-life

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On the road again…

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Well, it looks like we’ll be on the road for the next nine days or so. Some exciting stuff, visiting friends and family, attending the CCDA conference and taking one last getaway before we start ‘real’ life up here in Minneapolis. I’m not going to try and post every day while I’m gone, though if I have a chance I’ll put something up. I’m really enjoying the housing conversations and I’m thinking about it quite a bit.

Look forward to chatting more when I get back about October 14th.

p.s.  It’s my birthday on October 7th. The thing I like most for people to do on my birthday is to do something on behalf of me. If I’ve had any sort of impact or influence on you at all, then step out of your box and do something radical in that regard, and if you want, tell me about it. Give away something, bike to work, write a letter, stop shopping, pay off your mortgage, or just smile.

considering church

The Power of a Shared Vision

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I don’t usually delve too deeply into my personal life on this blog, though most of what I post is a reflection of personal experience and thoughts, but I wanted to take a minute to sort of reflect on where I (and my family) are at this moment.

I have been married for 4 years, 3 months, 5 days and about 12 hours (isn’t that cute?). I’ve been a father for just about 3 months now. We’ve recently moved to a new big city where we don’t know many people (though we have family fairly close) and we are looking to purchase a home and plant ourselves in the community. We are about to start a stage in our lives where school (and the debt that comes with it) is a thing of the past and ‘real world’ careers and life are on the horizon.

The scary thing about this moment, this new phase of life and journey, is that this is about the time that people expect us to ‘grow up’ and leave our ‘idealistic’ visions of the world.  It’s a dangerous time, maybe one of the most dangerous times in our lives. It’s almost like we are at this crossroads with two very clear and distinct paths ahead of us.

The well worn path is that of the ‘American’ dream. It’s been walked down by the majority of people we know and interact with, supported and valued by nearly everyone we meet, including in the church. It’s comfortable, it leads to fulfillment of desires for things I want (at least I feel I want them each time I see that commercial), and it will lead to approval in the eyes of those around me if I am successful. No one will look at me cross, and few will rebuke me for tossing aside my previous convictions, they’ll call it ‘growing up.’

The other path is small and over grown, it’s been traveled by few and my attempt at discerning the direction of the sign is even questionable. I see few in the society around me, and fewer in the ‘church’ walking down this path. It’s questionable, it makes me second guess my choices, it carries with in no prestige, and there seems to be little support. People, friends, family will question our choices, rebuke us for our ‘mistakes’ and look at us cross for years to come. Yet, I can’t help but reading the Bible, trying to follow Jesus, and see it as clear as day pointing and directing me down this path.

In a couple weeks Mindy and I are going to the CCDA Conference in St. Louis. It will be a rare opportunity for us to meet and listen to others who have traveled that narrow path. My prayer is that it will be an opportunity for us to build a shared vision that is strong and unwavering for this next stage of our journey. I am so grateful that I have a strong and wise spouse to take this journey with me.

p.s. Know anyone in St. Louis with a spare bedroom?

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Happenings At Trying To Follow

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If you haven’t noticed or known already, there’s quite a few changes going on at my house. For those who know me well, and those who don’t here’s a brief update/insight into Ariah’s Life and Blog these days.

In less then one month our little household community will begin to disband. It’s been an exciting year, and a life changing one. I’ve spent the last ten months in a house hold with 8 other people, two of them young children. It’s been an incredible time and I think it has shaped and changed each of our futures in dramatic ways. I’m sorry I haven’t blogged more about the experience, I think it’s a hard task to write on when your in the midst of it. I think I might interview all our housemates on how this experience has effected and changed them and post those as podcasts…

And the big change for me is coming any day with the birth of our first baby. I’ve had the last week off or work to clean and prepare the house, tend to my wife’s needs and try and wrap my mind around the idea that I’ll be a father. I’ve done okay at the first two, but conceiving of holding my child in a few days is hard to grasp. I have been adjusting to the fact that my life will never be the same, I’m really soaking in the transition that this moment in time is.

And, I guess sort of a reflection of the outward changes going on in my life, I’m sort of in a transitional stage with Trying to Follow and my writings, hobbies and interest. Not sure what that means for this blog at the moment yet. I’ve thought about pursuing different avenues of blogging, writing, podcasting and more. I love to write so I don’t plan on that going away, just morphing into something different. I might not write as much (as you’ve already seen), or I might write more. I just added the Asides, minipost that don’t hold as much expectation to be profound, which you won’t find in the RSS or emails, you’ll have to come to the site to get them. I’m also going to be doing a podcasting segment with Josh Brown for the Nick and Josh Podcast, I’ll link to it when it’s up and running. Oh, and if you haven’t subscribed to my blog let, please do so.

So, we’ll see if any new changes come this way, but for now, enjoy your weekend. Hopefully I’ll have a baby by the end of mine.

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Coming Up: A Week of Links (or Two)

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I’ve been future posting the majority of posts on here, mainly cause I’m to busy with work and baby prepping to sit down and write on a daily basis. The baby will be here very soon, and I’ll be taking a break from writing on here, so I’m setting up about two weeks worth of posts were I’ll just be posting links to websites I’ve found interesting. It’s up to you readers to lead the conversation.

Fridays I usually like to write a what if post, so here’s my what if…

What if I stopped blogging and wrote a book instead? Would it be worth reading? Would anyone be interested in purchasing a copy? I wonder…

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Playing with Ubuntu and Google Analytics

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I don’t usually waste a post for this, but I figured I’d talk tech since that’s what I’m wasting time doing right now. I just reinstalled windows on my laptop yesterday. I then dual booted with Ubuntu. Ubuntu, so far is sweet. Here’s the basic explanation of it… You know those Mac vs. PC commercials with the two guys talking? Well, picture then last two seconds when they sort of look at each other, and suddenly a huge herd of buffalo, elephants and zebras come trampling through, that’s Ubuntu. It’s an operating system that’s open source (meaning free) that runs extremely fast, smoothly and pretty. I’ve been playing with it this evening and plan on trying to make it my regular OS of choice.

And then on top of that Google Analytics (website statistics) just upgraded to a much more user friendly layout. So, Now I’m browsing through all the visitors I’ve had in the past few months and it actually makes sense. It’s pretty amazing stuff. For example, the most popular posts last month are:

Hip Hop Songs of Struggle

Fair Trade Footwear: Walk a Mile in Ethical Shoes

I Cry At The Teasing and Bullying Too.

Corporate Responsibility Monday: Sweatshop Free? No Sweat.

Failing Reading Scores = Prison Cells

I had no idea the Reading scores post was still getting as many hits as it is. I always noticed a few people a day searching for that and finding my site, but wow it’s in the top five most popular!

Anyways, I think the point is Google rules the internet/computer world. I use google for email, notes, bookmarks, blog reader, and the list goes on. There’s nothing they aren’t good at, and google adsense helps me pay the bills. Thank you google, I still don’t think your evil. yet.