How Deep the Father's Love For Us

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
And make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the man upon the cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

and the wait continues...

For me, the most frustrating part of getting laid off has been trying to find another job.

I'm sure I could get something in fast food, but I'd like to think I'm worth a little more than that.

My resume is a mixed bag, with retail, factory and technical jobs; jack of all trades, master of nothing if you will.

I've been unemployed long enough that I've received an extension on my benefit after exhausting my initial claim.

After laying low for a while, I've decided to start writing again. After all, I still have plenty of time on my hands as I haven't been able to find work in a field I want to stick with. I'm sure I could go to work at a fast food restaurant, but that won't pay as much as the unemployment benefit I'm receiving.

So what do I want to do? I'd prefer to do something with computers and networking, but everything I see on the job sites basically requires a two year degree, or a thousand years of experience. I've also considered going back to school; I've already applied to WCTC with the interest in a degree in computer networking. The other fun part of that would be paying for it.

There's a part of me that just want's to say "screw it", and find a job in a warehouse driving a fork truck, but there's this small, loud part that says hang in there, don't give up just yet.

In other news, Holly and I went to a midnight showing of Harry Potter 7.1 on opening night. To me, HP7 has a very "Empire Strikes Back" feel; the bad guys are winning and all seems lost.

While waiting for the movie to start, we were in line outside the theater for about and hour and a half, and in the theater a full two hours before the movie started. What I observed of high school and college kids is worth sharing. The young ladies we were next to in line were quite nice, and polite as well, making conversation with us as we were all very excited. Once we were in the theater, however, the crowd was rather bratty. Holly and I checked our Facebook with our phones and played cribbage to kill the time. Seated to my right were three young "ladies" who had rather foul mouths. If you know me at all, you know I can cuss up a blue streak, but to hear some of the language coming from these three surprised even me.

Once the previews started, the crowd settled in. Interestingly, the second preview was for "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Almost immediately, the whole theater started booing and yelling less than pleasant things, all because they disagree with Sarah Palin. I'll admit, I had to fight the urge to yell "2012!" at the end of the preview, just to see what would happen, but I didn't yell it.

The movie itself was pretty good, as was the crowd. Holly and I waited to see if there might be a sneak peak at Harry Potter 7.2, but there wasn't, so we headed for the car. Now, The Ridge in New Berlin had 7 showing of HP7.1 at midnight, and we waited to leave, so there was a pretty good line waiting to get out of the parking lot. Once we got in the car and got into a line, I had another "you damn kid" moment.

I'm pretty sure most adults know "The Parking Lot" game, ya now, the game you play at any major event that has a large crowd; if you are in a main line to leave a parking lot, you let someone in front of you, just like someone let's you in, so traffic keeps moving along.

I make it to the main line, and I'm stymied not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES by nitwits. The young woman driving the third car, a green Hyundai Sonata, looked right at me as she stopped, and I saw her face. She looked absolutely terrified, and I have no idea why. I did manage to get in line behind her, and then proceeded to let someone else in who had been waiting.

I'll admit, I'm getting old, but courtesy and manners never goes out of style. Holly commented she thought the behavior we witnessed was part of the "me" generation that seems to be so prevalent these days. I was inclined to agree, and it saddened me.

Roller coaster moments

As I get older, I find that I don't enjoy some of the things that I did when I was younger.

Yesterday, Holly and I had the pleasure of joining our friends Ben and Sarah at Six Flags. I enjoy roller coasters, but I didn't always. When I was six, my family was in Texas for my Uncle Gary's wedding and I rode some of the big coasters with my Dad at Six Flags over Texas. I just made minimum height for the Screamin' Eagle; believe me, I screamed through the entire ride. Somehow, after that, my Dad talked me into riding a "smaller" coaster, the Mine Car Ride, which wasn't too bad until the last drop into a "mine shaft."

I didn't ride a coaster again until I was 18. I decided to get over my fear and just ride a coaster. It worked. I found a love for coasters born out of fear.

When Holly and I started dating, I found out the she loved coasters too, despite having a fear of heights.

Fast forward to yesterday. The four of us get to Six Flags, ready to ride. I don't usually eat breakfast on roller coaster days, for fear of vomiting, and yesterday was no exception. First ride was the Superman, then off to Vertical Velocity followed by Batman. The lines were pretty short, so we were able to hit all three in less than 90 minutes.

I think that's what did me in; I didn't have my usual long wait to recover between rides. After Vertical Velocity, I grabbed a Coke to settle my stomach, only to have that Coke churn away while we were on Batman.

I walked away from Batman feeling queasy, and Holly was concerned. We took a break, as Ben was feeling a bit out of sorts as well, and had a bite to eat to calm our stomachs. I took the next couple coasters, Viper and Raging Bull, off and just took pictures of the other three as they left the station.

After walking around for a bit, I found my legs again and I *had* to ride the American Eagle. Once we got settled into the car and it took off, I felt both better and worse, but everything went fine, and we headed back to the Viper and Raging Bull to ride those.

After Raging Bull,, the girls were up for another ride, but Ben and I had reached our limit. Ben was grumbling something about getting old, and I just laughed it off with him while we waited for the girls to finish the Demon.

Even though I wasn't at 100% all day, I still had alot of fun, because I was with people dear to me. That takes the roller coaster feeling out of life, and makes for a smoother ride.

525,600 minutes

Holly and I celebrated 1 year of marriage last weekend. We reserved a room at the Pfister, just like we did for our wedding night, and made other plans as well.

We dropped our dog, Lumos, off at Holly's folks house and spent some time with them and also Holly's sister and brother-in-law before checking in at the Pfister.

We arrived at the Pfister and valeted the car; it always cracks me up to see my Focus lined up with Escalades and other more expensive vehicles, but the doorman always treats us like royalty.

Upon checking in, we are informed the room is quite ready yet. The hostess makes a phone call and asks for a hurry up on our room, and then gives us $20 in credit to the bar for drinks. Holly and I thanked her and went to the bar: Diet Coke for her, Ginger Ale and Jameson for me.

The hostess let us know our room was ready and we proceeded to our room. I had reserved a King Suite and it was fabulous! the front room had a counch and cushy chair, and the bedroom was as large!

We took a nap and then headed out to dnner at Saz's, one of our favorite restaurants, and then headed to the Marcus for Wicked. Holly loves muscal theater, especially Broadway shows, so I made sure we had tickets.

Wicked was amazing, and I think Holly is turning me into a fan of the theater as well.

We made a Leon's custard run after dinner and then back to the hotel to crash.

Up in the morning and breakfast in the Cafe at the Pfister, a ham and cheese omelet for Holly, biscuits and gravy for me. After breakfast, we went back to the room to pack and then to check out.

We went to hang out at Holly's folks some more, as well as pick up Lumos. We had lunch and just chilled for most of the afternoon.

Ater one year of marriage, I love my wife even more than the day I married her. We've been through alot: job changes, job losses, promotions, a move, difference of opinion, celebrating each other strengths, picking each other up during times of weakness.

I love you Holly ;)

Stop trying to hit me and hit me!

Hello friends,

I've been grappling with the idea lately of just doing. Not thinking, doing.

I have a tendency, ok, more like habit, ok, disease where I over think and over analyze things when I have time to think. When it comes to snap decisions, I'm a rock star, but when there is time for the thought or idea to marinate in my brain, I let doubt creep in take root.

Since I was laid off in February, I wondered what would be next on my job path. Sure, I have a small business, but I'm not seeing enough clients to make that a full time deal, yet.

I sent out several resumes to tech postings looking for IT work, be it setting up computers in an office or doing lower level networking. I had a couple of interviews, but nothing materialized.

My friend Curtis mention to me that the company he works for was looking for "data monkeys." Basically, learn the web-based software they use to display their products online for quotation purposes.

I was skeptical; I'm not a web guy, I'm a hardware guy. Curtis told me to throw my name in the hat and just try it.

We, that being two other guys and myself, were given a week's training in Downtown Milwaukee at the software company's headquarters, and after that we are at the New Berlin location of the company I am temping for. We were provided with laptops and a room of our own to work in.

Initially, it was very tense, as we were trying to learn the software AND learn the products we were going to be modeling. After the second week, I had serious doubts about my ability to do the job.

I let doubt creep in and poison my thought process: the cycle wasn't "How can I accomplish this", it was "can I do this".

One day, Ben, one of the other two guys, was working on his product line and was a bit stumped. I asked him to flesh out his process to me so I could help him see any gaps. When we finished, he says "OH! That's it!!".

To which I replied "Stop trying to hit me and hit me", refering to the fight scene in The Matrix where Neo is fighting Morpheus, and Morpheus is trying to convince Neo that Neo can indeed, hit Morpheus.

Ben's a friend of mine and we were roommates for a year, so he looks at me and sticks his tongue out at me.

what I learned from that, in helping Ben, was that I needed to stop worrying about IF I could do it, and JUST DO IT.

Friday, before the holiday weekend, Ben and I met with the Product Manager for our product lines we are working on, to show him what the online configurator would look like. He was very pleased with what we showed him.

After that meeting, I felt so much better about my ability to learn what I'm doing in a new situation and carry on and do my best with what I've been given.

Life goes on...

The move is complete. We now live in Brookfield, closer to everything we do, except Holly's job.

We're both fighting sickness: Holly has some sort of cough from hell that comes in fits and those fits last up to 10 minutes at a crack. I am suffering with my yearly bought of bronchitis, which brought a sore throat with it this time.

Our puppy, Lumos, is cute. Chewing on everything because he's teething, but cute. Whiny when he needs to pee, but that's better than peeing on the floor inside...and he's cute. Pics to come.

Life goes on....

An excellent weekend

I had an excellent weekend...

Saturday was my wife's birthday, so we were up to get her to her hair appointment. Holly wanted to try something different with her hair, so she cut it short and very cute.

While Holly was getting her hair done, I was taking care of a computer client; seems the fan on the video card was failing and making a grinding sound. WD-40 didn't take care of it, so I headed to the local parts store to get a new card. The store opened 10 minutes late for whatever reason, but I had time to pass one of my business cards to someone else who was waiting in line to get in. ;)

Pick Holly up at the salon, compliment her new look, and head to Gurnee for lunch with her folks, sister and brother-in-law at the Olive Garden. We were early and had time to kill, so we drove around a bit.

After lunch, Holly's sister Katie wanted to take Holly shopping, so we headed off to the JC Penny in Vernon Hills. The girls went shopping, while Jon (brother-in-law) and I cruised the mall looking for power tools and flat screen TVs...hello Sears.

After Katie was done spending money on Holly, we headed home. Holly let me watch the Nascar race while she showed me the new tops she had gotten. After the race, it was bedtime.

Sunday we up early so we could be to church by 8:30...Holly to help lead worship and I to watch the kids of the one of the other worship leaders. After church, we had lunch with some friends, then made our way to Slinger Superspeedway for the season opener. Now, before you get mad at me for making Holly go to the races on her birthday weekend, SHE bought the tickets...I had asked if it would be ok if we went.

At Slinger, we sat with our friends Pete and Cindy down in turn 1. The racing was close and the weather was perfect...both Holly and I got a little too much sun.

We took the scenic route home, and just vegged out once we got in the door.

No rush, no hurry, just a relaxing weekend.

trying to remember ....

The days have started to bleed together, and I had to ask Holly for some details.

Monday, Holly and I went down to Chicago to goof off, and Monday was the only day we didn't have something going on either of our calendars. We went to the Adler planetarium, took photos of Wrigley and Soldier Fields, and got to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Leona's, and got to hang out with our friend Laura :)

Thursday, I had a Twitter social event in Milwaukee. I had the chance to meet up with some new folks I hadn't yet met face to face, as well as find new people to stalk on Twitter.

Friday, we had dinner at some friends' and played Wii til our arms fell off...I want a Wii...

Saturday, we headed up to Appleton for the semi-annual check on Holly's ring. Why Appleton? It's one of the two closest Helzberg Diamond stores; the other is in Gurnee, and we had been to that one already. We had lunch at the Fox River Mall, then came home. Holly drove home because I was having a hard time focusing; I fell asleep. We were home a couple of hours, then headed to catch "How To Catch a Dragon" in Delafield. Very cute, go see it. After the movie, we grabbed a bite to eat at George Webb's in Oconomowoc before heading home.

Holly didn't sleep so well Saturday night, so we stayed home from church and just vegged out. My race was on at noon, and we followed that up with a disc of Battlestar Galactica. We've pretty much morphed into our couch at this point.

Catching up on things

Sorry I haven't been around much lately....seems like I have alot on my mind.

The job search continues; I've had a couple of interviews, but nothing yet. Business, however, has been good. I'm hoping the business takes off and I can stop looking for a job, but until then, we go with the two-pronged attack.

Holly's wrist surgery went well. She DOES NOT like being left handed while her right hand is all bandaged up. She's also not cleared to drive yet, so anywhere she goes, I go. The stitches come out on Friday, so we'll see what happens there.

My sister-in-law Katie is in the hospital. If you're on Facebook, you may already have an idea what's going on....that's all I'll offer from here.

Hand and Foot

The job search continues; I've had a couple of nibbles, but nothing concrete yet. The business has been pretty good, and I'm hoping that trend continues.

Holly went in for carpal tunnel surgery this morning; we were up at 4:30 to be to the hospital at 5:30. She was wheeled off to surgery just after 7:30 and was home by 10:30. After a bite to eat, she took a nap. I fell asleep on the couch as well.

This afternoon has been all about movies and taking care of Holly.

One month later....

It's been a month.

Funny how little time it takes my body to adjust from 5:30am wake up calls to 8 am sounding early. Holly's very good abut making sure I'm up before she leaves for work.


The trick has been keeping my time occupied during the day. Sure, I spend a decent chunk of time looking for work, but after a few days, the same jobs I've already applied for drift to the top.

I did have a staffing agency call me today for a short term project; I meet with them tomorrow to get to know each other...we'll see where it goes.

Holly and I have been looking at apartments closer to Milwaukee. The only thing we have here in Oconomowoc is her job, and all of our friends live in or near Milwaukee, so she's ok with driving. We've got a few places in mind to check out.

In a couple of weeks, Holly has wrist surgery, which means she be out of work for six weeks. I'm hoping to have found something before that time, since she goes on disability, which combined with my unemployment could make things very tight. We've been watching our money very carefully in the last month, and we're ahead of where we thought we'd be, which is great.

Waking up in Vegas

FRIDAY


Friday arrived and Holly and I were both anxious to get on the plane to Vegas. Trouble is, she had to work; her job does not allow her to take off or get out of work early on the last day of the month and so we prepared for that.

However, things worked out just fine: she WAS able to get done early due to low volume of work. I picked her up at 3:50 and we made our way to the airport.

We both haven't flown under the increased security, so we wanted to make sure we gave ourselves plenty of time to get through security and make our flight. The security wasn't all that bad really and we were at the gate by 5:30 for our 6:50 flight. We checked in for our flight, only to find that Southwest overbooked the plane. I received my confirmation, but Holly didn't. Great.

As the time to board grew closer, we considered taking the offer of free one-way tickets the next morning and a voucher to volunteer to bump from the flight. Fortunately for us, we didn't have to as they called Holly's name for her confirmation while the "A" group was boarding. The flight was full; not an empty seat.

Holly boarded about 13 spots before I did, and as things go, we didn't get to sit together; at least we were on the plane!

The flight itself wasn't bad; at night it's tough to tell where you are, although the pilot pointed out Denver before we flew over the Rockies. We had some turbulence, but nothing too bad.

We deplaned and waited for our bag to come out on the conveyor, then went to grab a taxi back to the airport. The vistors and cabs both are slotted to allow for an efficient loading process and we were hotel bound in 15 minutes.

We got to the hotel, checked in and were headed to the room when we were offered a "free" show. Upon further review, we were getting slotted into a presentation for a time share here in Vegas...more on that later.

Get to the room, set the bags down and just get our bearings; it was almost midnight back home and we felt it. I was hungry, so we headed back downstairs to grab a bite to eat.

SATURDAY

Woke up Saturday with the agenda to walk around a bit and play some games in the casino. Had breakfast at McDonald's in the hotel, then walked from Excalibur down to Bellagio and back, taking pictures all the way down. We had hoped to see the fountains at Bellagio, but were an hour too early, so we made our way back to the Excalibur to relax in our room. Holly laid down for a nap and I headed downstairs to watch the Nationwide race and have a beer.

After Holly's nap, we took in the casino. We played the slots, Holly having better luck than I did. I wandered off and found the race in one of the bars while Holly headed back to the room when she was done gambling.

We vegged out in the room for a bit, then headed out to see the Strip at night. We went to the Hard Rock for a light dinner since it was my birthday :) Took pictures of the guitars and other memorabilia on display. After that, we came back to the hotel and crashed.

SUNDAY - RACEDAY

Up at 7:30 to walk over to Tropicana to get the shuttle bus passes to the racetrack. Came back and grabbed breakfast for Holly and I on the way up to the room.

Wait in line for the shuttle bus, then take a 45 minute ride from the Tropicana to the track. We were allowed to cut through Nellis Air Force Base and got to see some birds pretty close up. If I knew which ones I would tell you.

Get to the track and off the bus. First stop: scanner booth. Rented a scanner and then we made our way to our seats. We were dropped off behind turn 2 and we had to walk to turn 4...the long way...uphill to the front stretch...but we survived.

We had FANTASTIC seats and could see the whole track from where we were. The sun was bright and the weather was perfect! I fetched a couple sodas and other snacks for each of us. I love the pageantry before a race: the driver introductions, the prayer for a safe race and the command to start the engines...nothing's more fun than Holly and I sharing it with 140,000 of new friends :)

We saw the "major" incident of the race in front of us on lap 90, but otherwise it was a clean race.

After the race, we made our way back to the line for the shuttle bus. Someone didn't relay the message that the race was over, and we wait over 2 hours for a shuttle bus...kinda ridiculous, but made it back intact, making conversation with the Canucks in line behind us while waiting.

When we got back to the room, we were spent, sun burnt a bit and hungry. Neither one of us wanted to go anywhere, so we ordered room service for dinner. I ordered a chef salad and Holly a chicken quesadilla, with cheesecake for desert...we were told it would 90 minutes to 2 hours for the food...and we were fine with that.

Food arrived only an hour later and was wheeled in. The salad was in a 12 inch salad bowl and was huge. Holly's quesadilla was in a hot serving tray....everything tasted great!! I destroyed my salad and finish the quesadilla...Holly commented that she's never seen me eat so much in one sitting :P After that...bedtime

MONDAY

We slept in on Monday...didn't bother to set an alarm. We grabbed breakfast at the hotel buffet; stuffed ourselves silly on scrambled eggs, sasuage and biscuits and gravy.

Once we were done with breakfast, we took another stroll down the Strip. Holly wanted to re-visit the store she bought a purse at on Saturday night for some other accessories, so we headed there. She found a very nice necklace that she like more than the other half dozen things she wanted :P

We came back to the room to rest and I started writing this entry. We then hit the casino floor one more time, trying in vain to break even...yeah, like that was gonna happen.

After the casino, we returned to the room for a while before heading to In-N-Out for a burger..first time!!! Loved it!!

One more stop by the room, then we walked down to see the Bellagio fountain show; we stayed for 3 different shows and loved them all.

We returned to the hotel, stopped by the convenience store for some snacks, then retired to our room so that we could get up at 4:30am to catch our 7 am flight home.

We will be back!!

In case you didn't figured it out, the title of this entry is also a link to the Facebook page with the pictures from our trip :P

Week 1 of being unemployed

So, I've now been unemployed for a week.

It still sucks.

I've applied for 14 jobs via job websites and thru references from friends.

I'm trying to be up and to "work" by 8am, that is, showered, dressed, fed and to my desk looking for a job. I have lunch around 11 or so.

I can't shake the weird feeling of being laid off, which is good I suppose; I don't want to get complacent.

My wife continues to being my biggest cheerleader and for that I am grateful.

Where do I go from here?

I lost my job today.

1:20 in the afternoon.

Turned in my keys and was walked out the door.

Why? The economy...if no one's building, no one's wiring, and that means parts aren't being sold.

Made some phone calls on my way home, first to my wife, then to the guys I've worked with at the store level for the last couple years. All the guys were shocked, to say the least.

Called my parents to let then know.

Filed for unemployment online.

I've never been let go from a job before, so it's all still sinking in.

Holly and I will talk through some things tonight, and Monday will feel really weird.

Where to from here?

Night and Day

Holly and I have been married six months now; we're still making adjustments as far as living together.

I commented last night that I think that a one spouse is a compliment to the other; some people get a spouse who is just like them, others get a spouse who is the complete opposite.

Holly and I fall into the opposite category.

Don't get me wrong, the opposite thing works out great for both of us. There are times I need motivation to do task oriented things that my ADD mind can't/won't track with; Holly sometimes needs positive encouragement, like after having a rough day at work.

Point is, I love my wife, and I can't imagine being married to anyone else...it just doesn't work.

Night of the Braindead Teenage Twits

Holly and I went on a date last night...be a while since we had done that. We decided to do dinner and a movie.

We went to see Sherlock Holmes in Delafield...yes, you need to go see it.

We got there early and grabbed a snack and a soda before the movie to hold us until dinner. When the theater was available, we made our way in and chose our seats.

At some point before the movie started, 8 teens made their way into the theater and began looking for seats. Fortunately, Holly and I were the winners of the "lets pick who to annoy" challenge.

They took up seats behind us and immediately started talking...actually, continued talking whatever they were talking about as they walked into the theater.

I looked at Holly and rolled my eyes. We didn't drop $19 to listen to these skinny jean wearing, bubble gum popping morons ruin the movie for us. Holly picked up on my cue and after another preview filled with chatter from behind, turned to the group and said "you guys aren't going to talk through the whole movie, are you?"

That shut them up. One of them answered meekly "no." We thanked them and glanced at each other and smiled. Then the movie started.

Why did I let Holly say something instead of me? She tends to be softer about it than I am. :)