"By the time the average Christian gets his temperature up to normal, everybody thinks he has a fever!"

- Watchman Nee
A number of things about me

  1. My name is Bill
  2. I'm married to Jill
  3. Yes, our names rhyme. Very cute
  4. I really, really love my wife. She's awesome
  5. We have four kids. They range in age from 22 to 14
  6. One of our kids (our oldest daughter) is married. Another is getting married in the summer of 2012. Amazing
  7. I can't believe I get to be a parent
  8. We have awesome kids
  9. Every one of our kids is different, and each in good ways
  10. Someone once asked me why I wasn't nervous before giving a talk in front of a few hundred people at work. I replied "I'm a parent. I know what fear is. This isn't it."
  11. I'm a Christian
  12. I follow Jesus imperfectly, and am an often timid and tentative disciple
  13. Jesus has changed my life in ways that take my breath away
  14. In my life, I've found that things that didn't make sense at the time generally make a lot more sense later on. I've found that the hand of God is generally recognized in hindsight
  15. I believe that one big purpose of living is to learn humility
  16. Humility is learned through the cool ways life has of teaching you that you don't know as much as you thought. Getting your rear-end kicked is one of the "cool ways" that life uses to teach you these lessons
  17. I think I'm learning humility, because I'm a lot dumber now than I used to be
  18. I'll know that I've arrived, humility-wise, when I no longer notice that I'm learning humility
  19. I'm not "post" anything (many thanks to Jared for that line).
  20. I find usages of "post" to be primarily a form of chronological snobbery. I feel a post coming (no pun intended).
  21. I often have post ideas that never get posted. Probably about one in 10 post ideas I have ever hit this blog
  22. I like blogging
  23. Ironically, I'm not a big fan of most of the blogosphere. Too much heat, not enough light
  24. My wife and I volunteer minister to the College and Young Singles at our church
  25. It's a challenging ministry. I need to get better at it
  26. Growing up, I lived in the United States, Japan, Okinawa, and Germany
  27. We've lived in the same house for the past 16 years. Which is kind of cool
  28. I'm shy in a lot of circumstances, but not all
  29. For instance, I don't mind talking in front of large groups, though I don't get that opportunity very often
  30. Sometimes I find it harder to talk to one or two people than I do talking to a lot of people
  31. I like Chinese food. Only one other member of my immediate family shares this like, so I don't get too much chinese food at home
  32. I eat more than my share of chinese food at work
  33. I've been told in the past that I have a dry wit
  34. I'm terrible, though, at snappy comebacks. I generally think of them about two hours after the fact
  35. For many years I worked with junior high and high school students at church. I have a special place in my heart for them
  36. I don't like violent movies
  37. Except Lord of the Rings. But I somewhat justify that because the majority of the violence is not human on human
  38. Does that make any sense? I didn't think so
  39. But seriously, violent movies mess me up
  40. If a movie is honestly redemptive, I'm going to love it
  41. Even if the movie gets bad reviews
  42. I'm a sucker for redemption
  43. Although I don't like it too formulaic in movie format. Kid sports movies where the underdog team wins at the end don't do much for me
  44. One reason The Bad News Bears worked was because it wasn't formulaic. They lost at the end.
  45. I tend to have a really good memory for what I've seen in movies. Case in point, that last item. I haven't seen that movie in thirty years
  46. It will come as no surprise that It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie
  47. I like history. A lot
  48. I tend to delve deeply into subjects I care about. I've learned a lot of minutae about, for instance, the Civil War and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs
  49. I like soccer. I didn't used to, but one of my kids plays it a lot and I've grown to really appreciate it
  50. Soccer is the world's sport
  51. The previous statement had nothing to do with me and so probably doesn't belong on this list
  52. I can't park
  53. Seriously, I'm the world's worst parker. I almost always leave one tire over the line
  54. I've never been in a wreck
  55. I'm an extremely defensive driver, because everyone else on the road is tripping on crack and 'roids
  56. If I had a dollar for every time I've run over a curb I'd be a wealthy man
  57. I think this all points to me being seriously deficient in navigating through three dimensional space
  58. I also have a really bad sense of direction. Much of my life has been me, driving around in tight, panicked, lost circles.
  59. But I'm getting better . . .
  60. I'm a musician of sorts
  61. Guitar is probably the instrument I'm most decent at. I used to be better
  62. I learned how to play bass a few years ago and got decent at it. But not so much anymore. I used to be better
  63. I was a drummer through high school and college. I also played drums for our church for awhile years ago. I used to be better
  64. I can make my way around a piano. Never was particularly good, though
  65. My mind is a much better musician than my hands
  66. I am really good at computers
  67. I like programming. I do it for fun. Weird, no?
  68. I wrote the blog software that you're looking at
  69. The blog software I wrote is free
  70. It's called Bloo (stands for BLOg Objects). You should try it out. I'll be your best friend if you do
  71. I'm a big fan of open-source software
  72. Computers don't scare me, and I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what ails 'em
  73. I'm not as handy in real-space. I wish I was better at fixing my house
  74. I'm learning, slowly
  75. God is good
  76. I am his child

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