Coffee in Winter

     Today's post comes to you from the Grand Traverse Pie Company in Muskegon, MI. I'm sitting on a stool looking out one of their wall-sized windows, watching the snow fall. Today's snow is the light and fluffy variety. It's the kind that gently falls to the earth, unlike the sleet that crashes down as quickly as possible. :)

     Sleet comes down the way that I ski. I like to downhill ski. Once I took lessons on how to ski, and it turns out there is more to it than just pointing the skis down the hill and staying on your feet. You have to learn how to move back and forth, and stay in control. Yet, to this day I still prefer to get to the top of the hill, point the tips straight down the hill and move as quickly as possible to the bottom of the slope.

     I love the speed of downhill skiing. In fact, I'm a pretty big fan of speed in general. I think it would be awesome to travel somewhere with no speed limits just to see how fast my car can go and what it feels like. Darn speed limits.

     The snow is letting up now. The store is fairly busy. The coffee is still good - getting a little colder though.

     Trying to find the motivation to get to work. I like what I do, but it doesn't get me out of bed in the morning. I desire to be one of those people who is passionate about their work. I don't know if that requires a change in me or a change in my work. I'm certainly passionate about some things. I'm becoming more passionate about communicating. I work for a "Communications" company, but honestly, they are not the best at communicating in the sense that I'm passionate about.

     I'm passionate about quality video. I'm passionate about training people. I've gotten to train people before, and I think my passion shows through, and makes me a better teacher. See, I'm kinda addicted to information. When I'm assigned something new, I want to learn everything I can about it. The thorough knowledge I gain puts me in a position to help people. I help people understand the thing I'm good at. It could be a product, or service, or compay, or idea.

 
     Here's an example: last night our dryer broke. Actually, I suppose you could say I broke the dryer. I was cleaning the inside of it after a red pen found its un-timely demise in the last load of laundry. I was turning the drum by hand and something snapped inside. Now, I like to fix things like that myself. They have a system, and I believe that the average consumer should be able to understand and fix their own appliances.

     Long story short, I found the problem - the belt had slipped of the motor. BUT there is a piece laying in the bottom that is not attached to anything. I don't immediately know where it goes and I can't figure it out. I'll look up a manual online today to figure it out and get it fixed. But I don't just stop at fixing the problem. My mind is constantly absorbing extra information while the dryer is apart. I'm looking at the felt the drum rides on. I'm noticing the setup and positioning of the heating element. I noted how many btu's the gas burner was, and how it was shielded. I even looked at the extra holes in the chassis - how one body could be used for several models by reconfiguring where the panels are bolted.

     Some of this information will come in handy later and some will not. I take it all in because I enjoy it though. I want to be able to understand and visualize it when a friend has a question with their dryer. I'm not going to hang a dryer repair sign outside my house, but it's handy to know. It's my nature.

     Not sure if there is a point to all of this :) Maybe it will encourage you to evaluate what you are passionate about. Maybe it just helps you to get a better idea of what makes me tick (scary thought) ;). Maybe it's just the ramblings of a young man in a coffee shop on a winter's day.

     It's snowing again. Time to warm up the coffee. Then, my journey begins.

Busy Winter

Wow! Things are busy in my neck of the woods! Can't you tell by the crazy heavy amount of posts? :D

But seriously, things have been getting busy. This week I have plans 4 out of 5 weeknights, I'm getting up early 2 out of 5 workdays, and the weekend is filling up pretty well too. Of course, if i didn't have things to do, I'd find plenty to do around home, some stuff that I need to do and a lot of stuff that I would just want to do :). That's ok, busy can be good. Importantly though, busy is good as long as there is a defined time of rest, and over the last 6-12 months, I've become MUCH better about taking a time each week exclusively for the purpose of rest.

It makes a huge difference to rest. Rest is different for each person. Some need to sleep, some need to lay in a hammock, some need to do a project they've been meaning to. yes, physical activity can be rest for some. I often fall into that category. Sometimes we run so much that just setting aside time to work on a rpoject I've been meaning to complete is EXTREMELY restful. In addition, when I get the project done, it no longer hangs over my head as something needing to be done, and thus, rest continues on through the week. Instead of being concerned over something needing to be done, but not having time for it, I can rest in the fact that it is done.

Well, I certainly don't intend to be long-winded on this post, so I'll end right after the following tidbit:

The parking lot to my office at 7:58am:

The parking lot to my office at 8:11am:

Winter is wonderful, isn't it?

P.s. - in all due respect, I'm usually in the 8:15a group. Thanks Brett!

Election 2008 - McCain vs. Obama

Photo Courtesy Dean Terry

Anyone else tired of the election yet? I'm very excited that we only have one week left! Twitter has been almost unbearable some days, especially if a debate is on.

I know who I'm voting for, but it hasn't come easily. I've had to do a lot of thinking, and consider both sides. I know that there is a clear choice for me now, but if my guy doesn't win, it'll be interesting to watch how it turns out.

I live in an economically depressed town, and that tends to sway voters a certain direction. They're looking in the wrong direction. And those who are looking at the other candidate, they're looking in the wrong direction too.

There's nothing wrong with voting. We live in a democratic society, and if we have the ability to influence who is elected to the highest office, we should partake in that liberty. But they all tell us what we want to hear. they'll all make promises they can't keep. Compromises will be made, and we won't even anticipate what's coming in the next four years. Either way, we can't look to the president to save us.

Vote for who you think the best candidate is, and then look to the only source of hope.

Did you really answer the question?

I was listening to a radio ad for a university today. They asked "If you could do something to make your life better right now, would you?" And then they launched into a sales pitch for their university ("call the university today to sign up for fall classes, we have...<insert college fare>..."). Then they finished up with a call-to-action something like "call today and register".

There is something very subtle in that commercial. They begin by asking a question, and then go directly into telling us about their product. Problem is, they never really say that their product is the answer to the question. It's like this:

Commercial: "Would you like to know how to bake cookies?"

Me: "Heck yeah! I likes me some cookies!"

Commercial: "OK! We teach math lessons better than anyone else. Call us today for more information!"

Me: "Wha?"


In my example, the business has a great service, and many people could benefit from math lessons. But math lessons don't answer the question "Would you like to know how to bake cookies", nor do they provide a solution if you DO want to know how to bake cookies.

That brings up another point with asking a question at the beginning of a commercial - like what if the answer is not as you anticipated it? Of course it is assumed that a reasonable person would want to make their life better. If a person will do anything to make that happen is the real question. But the purpose of this post is to point out that they don't tie it all together. If you're going to ask me if I want to know how to make cookies, you'd better explain to me how you can help me know how to make cookies.

Technorati Tags: Advertising

What is Twitter? Why would I do it?

I know many of you are tech-savvy and already know about Twitter. Some of you use it and love it :). But if you don't know, check out this website. It is a discussion from an NPR show where the guest does a much better job explaining it than I could. It's about 5 minutes long, but a very easy listen.

If you're interested enough to sign up, follow me at http://twitter.com/matthewtennison/ once you are signed up!

Side note: Have you ever tried to explain Twitter to someone? How have you done it? Did they "get it"?

Technorati Tags: Twitter

Biking

I like to ride my bike around town. Unfortunately that's not a year-round activity in Michigan. Though I can say that as a kid I would ride my bike occasionally in the winter. That was fun when you hit ice!

I was trying to figure out recently why I like bike riding so much. A few things came to mind:

• Health benefits - Ok, this one is obvious, but it should be included.

• No barriers between you and the world. When you're in a car, you have metal and glass separating you from everything else. It encapsulates you. When you're on a bike, you contain the bike in a sense between your legs. That leaves the rest of your body closer to, well, everything else.

• Freedom - you can access more places on a bike than you can in a car. I've found sidewalks and paths in the middle of the city I never knew about.

• Photography - I'm not a professional photographer or anything, but I do like taking pictures on occasion. There have been many time where I'll see something driving along, and not be able to capture it because I couldn't get to the camera, or I couldn't stop the car. But if you're on a bike, it's much easier to safely stop somewhere and get all the pictures you want!

I think it also slows me down, and creates opportunity to clear my head and even have some conversation with my wife and kids. It is a choice I make to step away from all of the screens in my house (TV, Computer, PDA (still working on turning the cell phone off)) and take in some of the natural beauty of the world.

Anyone else have a love of biking or walking or running?Technorati Tags: bicycling

It's been forever...

...or at least it feels like it. In fact, it's been so long that my preferred blogging tool, Scribefire, has updated two or three times since I last used it. I like some of the new features, but if you're not into Firefox and Scribefire you probably don't care ;) And if you do use them....well, you probably already know about them.

Work continues to be a struggle for me, but I continue to make it through. I've been with this company for almost three years now, and I rarely take vacation (partially as a security measure) so I decided to take some. Last weekend I took two extra days off and went to my in-laws' cabin in Northern Michigan. We had a GREAT time, and I was able to relax and reset myself. We didn't have many plans, so we could take our time and just rest. We ended up going rafting one day, and kayaking the next, which was a LOT of fun! I'd love to get some kayaks for us, but they're expensive! Even Brooke is able to paddle her own all by herself, and I was surprised! I mean, she's 6 years old! Yikes!

We're still fighting debt, and we're down to our last non-mortgage debt. We've lost a little steam lately because it's summer, and there are so many things to do. Kinda makes us wish we had more money to do more fun things. But then again, that's why we're getting out of debt. We've got to remember how much more fun we could have if we didn't have a $200 car payment! We're hopeful we'll be out by the end of summer, but that is fast approaching, and I think we might not hit it. We really need to engage the debt snowball more, and start using the money we've freed up from other debts to attack the car.

When we were in Cadillac this weekend, we decided we wanted to go to a church up there. Not having any personal recommendations, we cracked open the phone book and found a page and a half of listings for churches! The bummer part is that our fellowship doesn't have a gathering up there, so we kinda had to guess based on names. We really just wanted a church that was Bible-based and sound. We ended up choosing Independent Bible Church. I couldn't find anything out about them on the web except their service times, but we tried them anyway.

When we got there, everyone was very friendly, and wanted to introduce themselves. That was very welcoming. the church reminded us exactly the churches we grew up in. Traditional brown brick building, conservative service, pews, hymns, the whole deal. But it also seemed like the speaker (not sure if he was an Elder or Deacon or just a member, but the Pastor was on vacation) wanted to help them be more relevant. he used a laptop with a projector, and had a nice slideshow for song lyrics, and even a PowerPoint to go along with his study.

The problem was, it was like putting a video arcade in a nursing home. Something just doesn't fit. I think they may be on the right path, but the reality is that a large part of the congregation was older, and probably likes to worship the same way they've worshiped for many years. is there anything wrong with that? No. Is there anything wrong with wanting to change to be more relevant to the community and a new generation? If it's led by God, then no. The point is that those two groups just may not be the best to have in the same service. There is nothing wrong with having a traditional service and a contemporary service. In fact, in many ways it's better. The form of worship is of much less importance than the object of worship and the quality of teaching.

As far as the teaching goes - it was solidly grounded in the Bible. It was a good message, and the teacher went verse by verse through one passage. While it wasn't particularly invigorating, it was sound, and we could appreciate that. It goes to show how God can change your heart when you can listen to a less-than-invigorating teacher and not fall asleep ;).

All-in-all, we miss our church, and look forward to being back there this week. We especially miss the people there. The ones who know us and support us and have invested their time with us. It's like a sweet aroma.