"Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness."
- John Calvin
Laughing out loud with fear and hope I've got a desperate plan . . .
- My name is Bill
- I'm married to Jill
- Yes, our names rhyme. Very cute
- I really, really love my wife. She's awesome
- We have four kids. They range in age from 18 to 9
- I can't believe I get to be a parent
- We have awesome kids
- Every one of our kids is different, and each in good ways
- 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."
- I'm a Christian
- I follow Jesus imperfectly, and am an often timid and tentative disciple
- Jesus has changed my life in ways that take my breath away
- 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
- I believe that one big purpose of living is to learn humility
- 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
- I think I'm learning humility, because I'm a lot dumber now than I used to be
- I'll know that I've arrived, humility-wise, when I no longer notice that I'm learning humility
- I'm not "post" anything (many thanks to Jared for that line).
- I find usages of "post" to be primarily a form of chronological snobbery. I feel a post coming (no pun intended).
- I often have post ideas that never get posted. Probably about one in 10 post ideas I have ever hit this blog
- I like blogging
- Ironically, I'm not a big fan of most of the blogosphere. Too much heat, not enough light
- My wife and I volunteer minister to the young singles at our church
- It's a challenging ministry. I need to get better at it
- Growing up, I lived in the United States, Japan, Okinawa, and Germany
- We've lived in the same house for the past 14 years. Which is kind of cool
- I'm shy in a lot of circumstances, but not all
- For instance, I don't mind talking in front of large groups, though I don't get that opportunity very often
- Sometimes I find it harder to talk to one or two people than I do talking to a lot of people
- 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
- I eat more than my share of chinese food at work
- I've been told in the past that I have a dry wit
- I'm terrible, though, at snappy comebacks. I generally think of them about two hours after the fact
- For many years I worked with junior high and high school students at church. I have a special place in my heart for them
- I don't like violent movies
- Except Lord of the Rings. But I somewhat justify that because the majority of the violence is not human on human
- Does that make any sense? I didn't think so
- But seriously, violent movies mess me up
- If a movie is honestly redemptive, I'm going to love it
- Even if the movie gets bad reviews
- I'm a sucker for redemption
- 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
- One reason The Bad News Bears worked was because it wasn't formulaic. They lost at the end.
- 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
- It will come as no surprise that It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie
- I like history. A lot
- 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
- 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
- Soccer is the world's sport
- The previous statement had nothing to do with me and so probably doesn't belong on this list
- I can't park
- Seriously, I'm the world's worst parker. I almost always leave one tire over the line
- I've never been in a wreck
- I'm an extremely defensive driver, because everyone else on the road is tripping on crack and 'roids
- If I had a dollar for every time I've run over a curb I'd be a wealthy man
- I think this all points to me being seriously deficient in navigating through three dimensional space
- I also have a really bad sense of direction. Much of my life has been me, driving around in tight, panicked, lost circles.
- But I'm getting better . . .
- I'm a musician of sorts
- Guitar is probably the instrument I'm most decent at. I used to be better
- 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
- 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
- I can make my way around a piano. Never was particularly good, though
- My mind is a much better musician than my hands
- I am really good at computers
- I like programming. I do it for fun. Weird, no?
- I wrote the blog software that you're looking at
- The blog software I wrote is free
- It's called Bloo (stands for BLOg Objects). You should try it out. I'll be your best friend if you do
- I'm a big fan of open-source software
- Computers don't scare me, and I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what ails 'em
- I'm not as handy in real-space. I wish I was better at fixing my house
- I'm learning, slowly
- God is good
- I am his child
