Tag Archives: my_life

Blog

Have I encouraged you?

1 Comment

So I had this idea for a little while, and tonight I decided to just try and make it happen.
I spend a lot of time writing about and thinking and talking about things that I care about and I believe are important. Sometimes I feel like I’m making a difference, other times I feel like I’m talking to a wall. I feel compelled to encourage others regardless of the outcome, but it’s nice to know your making a difference.
So I just threw together this site called, “I Encouraged…” Basically it’s just a blog I sort of hacked to my specifications. And I’ve just posted things I’ve spent time or effort encouraging people to do. You can look at the list and If I’ve encouraged you to do something, either through something I said or wrote, or just by example, then by all means please post a comment so that you can send your encouragement my way. If I can figure out how to make it look a little nicer I might open it to others to be able to post the things they’ve encouraged people to do.

For now, enjoy “I Encouraged…”

Blog

I love your comments! (and you silent readers)

Leave a comment

I stepped back and thought about it and I realized there have been a lot more comments on my blog lately. A number of them have been simple and encouraging “amens” to what I wrote. I absolutely love those comments because they encourage me to continue writing and they let me know my writing is benefiting others besides myself.
A handful of other comments have been very insightful for me, sharing more information I might not have known about a particular topic and helping me to grow in a great many ways. Thank you so much for those, I have grown a great dal from your knowledge and wisdom.
Finally, there are some comments that seem sort of competely unrelated to what I write in my post. Some of these are mean personal attacks (sometimes they disappear), others are just unrelated. I enjoy these too. I also like that my blog has at times has become a forum for others to carry on discussions. I’m glad this can be a place for that.

All of this was simply to say thank you. I appreciate your time and I love your comments. Please continue to let me know how I can serve you.

p.s. a great way to acknowledge my appreciation of you would be to drop a quick comment below…

Blog

Technical difficulties: Precondition Failed

Leave a comment

So, the truth is I have not been too busy to write. Honestly I think letting myself go a day or two without writing got me out of the groove. I suddenly started thinking about what people would think about what I was writing, and if I was really a good enough writer to be doing this regularly.
I think I’m over it now.

But, excuse number to is this thing called Precondition Failed. Each time I mustered up the confidence to write I’d try to login and my own blog wouldn’t let me on cause it thought I was a robot (computer running through sites just to spam). I still can’t figure out why it did that.

Anyways, I was wondering if this happened to any of my regular readers as well? If so I’ll be sure to look into it. If not I’ll just go on about my business and start posting regularly again like I should have been all along.

Blog

Looking forward to this week…

Leave a comment

Again, a rather un-profound post.
It looks to be another busy week ahead, so I want to prepare you for the disappointment and heartache you might feel from not hearing more from me as far as thoughtful commentary on life goes.

Here’s some of the short, but hopefully interesting post you can be expecting this week:

  • Notes on the book To Own a Dragon and/or Colossians Remixed
  • Notes on applying GTD (getting things done) to my work and life
  • Notes on how to be a better teacher and motivator
  • sweet advertisements I’ve seen recently
  • commentary on life

That’s about all from these parts.

Blog

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses.

Leave a comment

(You know when you write “excuses” three times it starts to look funny)

I write to give you three very good excuses as to why you have been left bored this week with mostly postings of research info and not much of my own personal thoughts this week.

  1. I recently switched positions at my work, but that has meant doing my old job and my new one both during this week (and likely next week). It’s caused some very long days, but I’ve enjoyed them a lot. My mind hasn’t been able to wander to other things so I haven’t had much to write about, nor the energy to do so.
  2. As I’ve mentioned, Soulforce’s visit to Wheaton College is coming up next weekend. I’ve been posting alumni stories as I’ve gathered them and posted them at Overflowmag.com. It’s been a very exciting project and it’s gotten a LOT of traffic, and hopefully some more will come before the events next weekend.
  3. This one is obvious:
    mindy

I hope you can understand. I’ll post some more this week if there is time. I might just start posting some old writings I’ve dug up recently. We’ll see.

Blog

We have a Winner!

Leave a comment

Congratulations to José O. Vilanova!

José O. Vilanova

José was the first (and thus far only) caller to the Trying to Follow hotline. He’s won a free t-shirt from http://iamnotashamed.net which he’ll be able to sport shortly.

I’d love to hear from more subscribers and readers if you feel like calling in with a comment or just to say hello.

Leave your message at: (775) 370-6924

Or just post some cool comments below!

Blog, podcast

April 9th, Weekly Update podcast

Leave a comment

The latest and greatest from Trying to Follow, now in podcast form. This 15 minute update fills you in on this week’s blog post and let’s you know if you want to spend time checking more of it out.


or download here.

For quick links to the stories:

And please leave your comments on the post, or if you like to talk leave a voicemail:
(775) 370-6924

Blog

I want to write a book

6 Comments

One of my goals since High School was that I wanted to write a book before I finished college. I think I saw the popularity of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and thought, “I can write something like that” (not content, but quality).
My College Diploma came in the mail last summer officially calling an end to my college days and permanently marking that goal is “Incomplete.” If sulked in the defeat enough, and now it’s time for me to get up and try again. I want to write a book.
I think the longest papers I’ve ever written were 13 pages each (one in high school, one in college). The idea of writing something that qualifies as a “book” is intimidating to me. At the same time, blogging has helped me to see that it is very possible. My guess is if I just took everything that I have currently written on this blog it would make a decent sized book. If I can learn how to remain focused and have a clear goal in mind I think I can accomplish this.

A few things I would ask:

  1. Please give me a lot of feedback on my writing, I appreciate people’s thoughts and encouragement.
  2. If you have any advice or guides on how to go about this I’d love to hear it.
  3. I’m wondering if self-publishing or finding a publisher is the way to go, any ideas?
Blog

ads?

3 Comments

I thought I’d inquiry my readership before I come to a decision on this.
I don’t spend an insane amount of time writing, but it would be nice to have some compensation. I currently have google adwords at http://iamnotashamed.net and they result in a check every once in a while. I’ve been considering putting the ads on here as well.
All that would mean is the simple text ads in the side bar and sprinkled through out the post. Hopefully not too distracting to regular readers, but a good financial option for myself.

Is anyone horribly opposed to me putting ads on this site?

That being said, would anyone consider “subscribing” if I made a subscription type of posting series? I’m not sure how that would work. Maybe sponsorship would be a better term. Like a small donation every so often from my regular readers? I’m not sure about that because I personally don’t like paying for anything (problem I know).

Hoping to hear my readers thoughts.