Oh My Goff

2010 has arrived! Now behind me, the ’00s brought:
- adulthood and its quandaries
- the beginning of wonderful friendships and the passing of old
- ten new places of residence, the last three of which are in my new home state of Montana
- the trusty ’86 Volvo 240DL, my beloved ’98 Ford Crown Victoria (R.I.P.), and most recently an ’07 Ford Focus  
- a brief tenure at university where I met some of my (still) favorite people
- financial stability, after putting myself in a large amount of credit card/student loan debt
- good roommates, not so good roommates
- the creation of some the most memorably cherished and most forgettably rotten moments of my life

Bearing in mind that it is all in the past and thus not worth too much nitpicking and analysis, I nonetheless pause to reflect on the path that has led me to today: January 2, 2010.
After a few tries at writing the next lines, it became clear to me that I left out a couple of large line items in the list above. That’s okay. I left them out on purpose. I feel they do not in any way define me nor have they had enough of an effect to consider worthy of any greater note than this quick tidbit. So let’s move along, shall we? Good.

I could be long-winded and write many pages of useless drivel about how I’ve changed since 2000 and what each year meant to me, but I won’t. The important part is that God has been with me throughout, and I’m where I’m supposed to be. Whatever brought me to this place, however life-changing or mundane, I’m grateful for. No matter what it was, whether painful or glorious, today is what’s important. I get to live in the most beautiful place in the world and have amazing friends. I have a roof over my head and money to pay the bills. I have a growing relationship with almighty God and am striving to make the most of the time He’s given me to roam this earth.

So then, what am I resolving to do or not do in 2010? I will increase my reading of books that have redeeming value. I will spend more time thinking things all the way through before I act. Beyond that, there isn’t much I believe warrants change.

Happy New Year (and new decade), everyone!

As I mentioned in my last post, I visited Polebridge a couple of weekends ago. After we spotted the herd of elk, we continued on our way, stopping at Polebridge Mercantile, the only store in “town”. Pastries and baked goods are a specialty of P.M., and the members of our caravan wasted no time purchasing and consuming various said items. Arriving at Schnaus cabin soon thereafter, we were greeted with one of the best views from a porch I’ve ever seen in my life (click for full-size):

Taking a few moments to soak it in, we unpacked our gear and food and strapped on some XC skis. It being my first time, I was a little wobbly at first but I was near the front of the pack in no time. Sidenote: cross-country skiing is really, really fun. It’s a great workout and our particular location afforded us prime views of the river and surrounding valley. 
Several miles each way and a few protein bars later, we were back at the cabin, relaxing and beginning to cook our feast of a dinner. Homemade chili, garlic shrimp, and split pea soup headlined the meal with a variety of other snacks and victuals available. Fortunately, though there was no electricity at Schnaus cabin, there were gas lamps which enabled us to play a few rounds of Scattergories. An impromptu drum circle session ensued, with an assortment of cowbells being the main attraction. Thanks, Christopher Walken.
A somewhat sleepless night with several pitch-black trips to the outhouse to empty my bladder resulted in a surprisingly easy morning wake-up. Once again donning the skis, this time we got back on North Fork road and headed further north, finally parking at the end of the line at Trail Creek Rd. Warmer weather and more level ground slowed us down compared to the previous day, but it was a welcome change of pace and allowed more time to take in the gorgeous surroundings. All too soon, it was time to head back to town…
A return visit to Schnaus cabin is in my future, this I know.

Working nights is a pain, yes. But here are some good things about it:

1. Affords one the opportunity to become proficient at duct taping cardboard together over one’s windows. I’m serious. I have that ish down.
2. Save money on a health club membership by turning the empty office building into my own personal gym during break time; namely, the stairs. Lots of them. Repeatedly.
3. Having a 4 day on 3 day off schedule is underrated. I mean, who doesn’t want to stay up 3 nights in a row all by themselves doing nothing?! It’s a no-brainer. (Note: sarcasm. I must say, however, that it makes for good reading time.)
4. Makes for interesting conversation with grocery store employees while shopping at night. Though I’m pretty sure at least one of them thinks I’m doing meth.
5. This is a silly list but in the end, attitude determines altitude and regardless of what shift I’m working, being happy and content is more important.

Proper perspective reveals that it’s really not what happens to us that dictates our level of happiness, it’s how we react to and treat these events and circumstances. I may not have the dream schedule I desire, but I also realize that there is a season for everything, and if this one gives me the chance to gain a better perspective and find a deeper, more meaningful existence then I’m all for it.

So, I’ve slacked off lately on blogging. I know. I’ve had a lot on my mind for awhile and haven’t felt like publishing it for the world to see. I still don’t. So I’m just gonna play catch up a bit and start again from here on out.
First off, I got the old heave-ho from Semitool. A few weeks ago we had a department meeting and were informed that there was to be a round of layoffs at Semitool, and I.T. would be cut by 1-3 people. This, of course, is a disconcerting thing to hear because the entire I.T. department consisted of 12 people at the time worldwide. Seeing as I was the latest hire and seemed to have the least amount of responsibility, I had a feeling I was going to be one of the chosen few. Last Monday, that feeling came to be truth. At 8:30AM, a co-worker and I were asked to go with the I.T. manager to the CFO’s office. In my manager’s hand were two large white stuffed envelopes. Lovely. It’s a bit of a walk from I.T. over to the executive area, and I felt like the entire production floor was staring at us as we solemnly walked by. That was the worst of it. After sitting down and hearing about a 20 second version of “The economy sucks, we have to let people go and you’re one of ‘em”, I was on my way back to my desk, envelope in hand. The anxiety that had plagued me since the department meeting weeks before was replaced by a simultaneous disappointment in myself and a feeling of peace, knowing that it was time to move on to the next chapter of Montana life.
After a minute or two of cleaning out my desk, I was out the door. Dozens of ex-employees came outside, one by one, and got into their cars, many looking crestfallen. I silently wondered what it would be like to have to come home and tell my family that I had lost my job. I made a couple quick calls to family members asking for prayer and started my car. A visit to the bank with my severance checks and a brief stop at my landlord’s leasing office to tell them the news brought little comfort. Some soul searching helped me realize that the Semitool job, while instrumental and certainly an integral part of what brought me to MT, left me feeling mis-utilized and unapplied. Coming home feeling unfulfilled was a part of my 5-day work week.

Fast forward to today – I’ve got a couple interviews lined up this week, one at The Summit, one at National Flood Services. I’m still submitting applications and resumes to prospective employers, of course, but it’s encouraging to have the interviews set. I’m hopeful and expectant that I will find something more fulfilling and better in line with my career goals. I’ve been evaluating the whole I.T. career path and I know I don’t have the passion for it. Ten years have passed, and I’m realizing that staring at a computer screen all day is about as fulfilling as it seems. I want to do something more involved with people, and right now the only industry that appears to be making money at doing this is healthcare. Unfortunately, I’m not a doctor/nurse/CNA/EMT/what have you. I’m weighing my options carefully and realize that it may be in my best interest to take a lower wage job if it means getting my foot in the door in the healthcare arena. On the other hand, I have many bills and necessary expenses that require a certain wage level. All of this just means that extra prayer and “finding myself” are paramount for prioritizing. Clearly, securing an income is at the top of the list. The desired change of career path isn’t one that can materialize overnight, barring some divine intervention and a winning lottery ticket for med school.
Letting go and trusting in God’s guidance and provision isn’t always easy, but it does bring me to a place of humility like none other. I’m so thankful for family and friends and the support they’ve demonstrated this especially this last week but really since I moved to the Flathead valley.

Aimless cracks, alive but insignificant
ambition absent save to prevent extinction
intersect at the whim of nature
as leaves in the wind, tattered orphans remain.

Ebb and flow, they strengthen
ascending in magnitude, pushing limits
secondary clefts develop, redirection inescapable
new bearings and attitude in mind, they follow
their own trail, the lots cast.

What does it say about our society when our e-mail provider have to intervene with a “feature” to help us check our drunk-texting selves at the door? Not good things. Here’s a snippet from Google’s blog:

“When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?“

Hilarious, yet sad.

Friday night was one of the more interesting nights in recent memory. After work I stopped by Flathead Industries to see what kind of furniture they had and left feeling ambivalent about the selection. From there I shot over to Verizon to get a firmware update and new battery for my 2006-era Motorola V325, an oldie but a goodie. (I had been using a Samsung SCH-i760 smartphone but didn’t need the PDA functionality anymore. Plus, that thing took forever to answer calls. I’d hear an incoming call ring in, press the green button to receive it, and wait 3-4 seconds before it would actually pick up.) ANYway…tangent alert.
While waiting for the clueless Verizon technicians to update the phone’s firmware, I paid a visit to Target to see what their prices on furniture are like, and to potentially pick up some household items I need. Well, I walked out empty-handed. $40 for a trash can. A trash can! Ridiculous. I’ll stick to the tried and true leaving-piles-of-rotting-food-and-sticky-paper-towels-all-over-the-floor method, thanks. Returning to Verizon, I spent another 20 minutes in line before getting the phone back. At least the battery life is good now
Feeling less than productive by this point, I decided to get a haircut. Easy as pie. Feeling pounds lighter, I headed home to shower out the millions of tiny pieces of hair sitting all over my head, ears, forehead, eyebrows, down the back of my shirt, etc. Once things were cleaned up I drove back to Kalispell to meet Cailey at CityBrew for some coffee and good ol’ fashioned computer fixing. Accomplishing that, we thought it would be fun to see a movie. One small problem: It was not 9:20, like her laptop suggested. It was 10:20 which means the theater had no more showings for the night. Time for plan B.
We drove over to Cailey’s old roommate’s place where I met a few interesting folks. Now, I say interesting, when what I really mean is crazy. The good kind. For the next 6 hours, we all playfully harassed each other, ruthlessly at times, until one by one we all succumbed to the insidious force known as being too f’ing tired. Driving back along highway 2 at 4:something in the morning was an uneventful yet predictably harrowing experience. I wasn’t exactly sleepy, but tired enough to the point where I had tunnel vision and zoned out for miles at a time. Upon arriving home I was forced to make an executive decision based on the fact that I knew I had to be back in Kalispell at 7AM to help someone move. If I went to bed now, at around 4:45, I’d be hitting the deep sleep cycle right around the time I needed to wake up. No good. So instead, I chowed down on some just-now-thawed shrimp cocktail, checked my email, and forced myself to stay awake just a bit longer. At 6AM I gave in and fell asleep just long enough to call it a cat nap.
Feeling surprisingly refreshed, I hopped in the car and sped to IHOP to meet Nick for breakfast. Talk about a letdown. Unaware of the cruel joke the chef was about to play on me, I gleefully ordered the Big Steak Omelette. What arrived at my table was more like the Big Fake Omelette. Four little pieces of steak sitting on top of the omelette, another two or three tucked inside. Lame. Too hungry to make a big deal out of it, I wolfed it down and accompanied Nick to Starbucks to pick up coffee for himself and our third member of the moving party, Sabriand. Sabriand arrived with a cup of coffee in hand, but no matter. The more caffeine for these two, the better. Abstaining from the chemical concoction, I spent the next 6 hours helping move Tim Goff into his new house. He has no relation to me that I’m aware of, and just moved up here from Texas. He also works at Semitool as I do. Weird. A 26′ U-Haul truck load and a half later, we finished up and I drove home in a total daze. At one point I caught my eyes crossing and forced myself to snap out of it. An attempt at a nap and a little food later, I caught up with Cailey again at the theater to finish Plan A from the night before. We chose to see Ghost Town which was a really great movie, and a breath of fresh air in terms of its message. Go see it. Realizing afterward that I’d basically only eaten some shrimp cocktail, an omelette and a slice of rice bread in the last whole day, I gave in to storming Finnegan’s with cohort Cailey and put away some seriously greasy food. Sometimes grease is good. By this point it was around 1AM and I couldn’t fight off the need for sleep any longer, and drove back home for the third time in 24 hours. This time I went straight to bed. Waking up feeling somehow more tired than before, I kicked myself in the rear end and went to church, knowing I was on the schedule for the 2nd service’s video ministry team. (I would’ve gone anyway, but extra motivation doesn’t hurt :-P .)
After the service, which shamefully was mostly a blur due to my semi-concious state, a large group of us began preparing to go to Mackenzie River Pizza Company for Sabriand’s birthday. A quick rendezvous at Rosauer’s netted us a nice birthday cake with some personalized frosty-writing on it, plus enough candles to make him feel old. Oh wait, that’s his real age. Mission accomplished. Sabriand had predicted a likely attendance of 12 or more at his birthday gathering, but the final tally by my count was 28. One can imagine the possible pitfalls of such a large party at a moderately sized restaurant, and we were no exception. For the first hour, nothing came. No drinks, no appetizers, no setups or even napkins. Sensing the mood beginning to sour, Sabriand came to the rescue and had some polite but evidently effective choice words with the wait staff. Within minutes, appetizers and drinks were streaming out of the kitchen and onto our tables. Soon enough all the orders had been filled and the only sounds to be heard were mmm’s and remarks of the food’s quality which, I have to admit, was very good. At the 3 hour mark, the last of us got into our cars and scattered.
Erroneously thinking that the current downpour of rain would discourage outings, I went to Costo to do my bulk grocery shopping for the month. Costco was, for Montana standards, totally packed. I didn’t let that get in my way, however. Weaving in and out of aisles and around slowpokes with their infernal carts is something of a hobby of mine. In fact, it’s one of the shortest Costco trips I’ve ever had, so I guess at some level the rain logic was sound. On the way home I had a conversation with an old friend from California and caught up for awhile. Turns out that her computer was acting up and I’m just the person to fix it, right? Right. The evening was spent with me remotely connected to the computer removing trojans/spyware, doing general cleanup, and conversing further with its owner. 

All told, it was a great weekend. Next time, though, I’ll try to pay a little more attention to sleep.

After a somewhat lackadaisical day on the job, the evening turned out to be quite the opposite. Immediately after work, I popped in to Dollar Tree and scored some sweet tumblers, cleaning supplies, and a couple other knick-knacks that I needed. Following that was a catch-up conversation with an old friend, which is always nice. Church came next, which happened to be a really great service along with some amazing worship that lifted my spirits and filled me with immense joy. Hallelujah!
Receiving notice from my stomach that dinner hadn’t been consumed yet, we rounded up a few folks to head to Applebee’s afterward for refreshment. Side note: iced tea is apparently very popular amongst young Montanans.
Boneless buffalo wings for life.

A second ago I crumpled up a piece of waste paper in my left hand. Immediately I began moving my mouse over to the Recycle Bin icon on my desktop to empty it. It took a moment before I realized my folly and instead threw out the paper into the trash can. Sigh.

There’s a lot of hub-bub going on about an Acai product called Mona Vie right now and I felt the need to address it and give my two cents on the topic. I’ll try to focus on the product itself and why I wouldn’t sell it myself, rather than all-out attack the MLM/Pyramid Scheme model. I don’t need to explain something that someone else has already done quite well.

Basically Mona Vie is a juice supplement heralded as a “cures what ails you” product. Containing acai berry juice, other assorted juices, and some vitamins and minerals, it’s full of healthy stuff the body needs. What’s so wrong with that? The issue I take with the product is that for the price, one could do just as well or better with a superfood supplement, multivitamin, or simply spending the extra money on healthier, organic foods. $40/bottle is quite a steep price for something that, at the recommended dosage of 3oz. or so per day, lasts around a week.

I was given a bottle by a friend to try out and see if it helps my autoimmune conditions. Having dealt with these conditions for over 10 years now, trying just about everything under the sun both natural and medical, I feel I have nothing to lose. Just recently I spent two months taking a similar product donated by a family member called Zrii. However, what I will NOT do is pursue any sort of participation in selling, distributing, or recruiting others to sell the product. I believe the business model as referenced in the link above is one that is exploitative and takes advantage of the passionate and naive.
For example, Joe Schmoe hears about this new wonder product, gets all this professional literature about said product, and is sucked into the frenzy and hype. Soon enough he’s enrolled in the program, trying to spread it to his friends to make more money. Therein lies the ethical problem for me: I just don’t see how it’s right to bring others in with the knowledge that you’ll be making money off of them. I don’t feel that “loving your neighbor”, as we are commanded to do, includes encouraging them to buy something from us and then sell it, with a portion of their profit becoming ours. I could write pages and pages about my disdain for this model, but I’ll keep it concise and end it with the following.

Bottom line: if I want to buy a health product, I want it sold in the conventional way, with no one profiting but the person or company that created it, not a force of distributors and recruiters who are desperately trying to increase their referrals so they can make a few bucks. To me, that lowers the product’s attractiveness because it’s no longer about how great the product is, it’s about perception and how many people you convince to believe in its greatness.