Corporate anger

I am on hold ... oh okay, now I'm on conference call with 2 departments of BellSouth. They have almost brought me to tears. I am SO ANGRY!!! GAhhhh! The thing is, it's really over something that is relatively, in the grand scheme of things, very petty. But I cannot stand these corporate giants screwing people over. They win just because they wear you down with their endless answering machines and non-answers and transfers to other departments! I have spoken to at least 4 people and sent at least 2 emails about this problem already.

How does something like this make someone
s
o
o
o
MAD?

This is why I think AT&T is evil. I had to do a corporate COFR with them once, which is a change of financial responsibility when someone else wants to start paying a phone bill. That lasted for days and days and definitely involved lots of tears. I hate this crap so much. Die you evil multinational corporations!

Next time

I will guard my heart.
I will guard my heart.
I WILL guard my heart next time.

:(

Africa

I've been asked to go to Africa (Tanzania) in August for 1-2 weeks for work. YAY!!! I've never been there, only to Liberia on the west coast, which is entirely different.

BC, BCE, AD, and CE

Wow. It seems Wikipedia users have officially transitioned from using "BC" and "AD." It's now always BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era).

I don't care if they take down the 10 Commandments and ban prayer from schools and stuff like that. I don't care if they take "In God We Trust" off the money (what do God and money have to do with each other?). But this does make me a little sad. lol Seriously though. Actually it makes me feel old more than anything. Education has made some big changes just since I was in the system a few years ago!

But I do understand why they changed it. I mean, it's kinda strange to profess faith in the Messiah just by referencing a particular year in history.

Speaking of calendars, apparently our western, solar Gregorian calendar is not very great. The whole leap year thing should tell us that. According to my Dad, the Mayan Calendar is where it's at. He thinks if we used that, not only would the calendar be much more simple, but we'd have a much better rhythm to our lives. Faaaascinating. :)

So pretty

I don't know how I happened upon this, but I love it. This very well may be the CD to define this summer.

The beauty of the rain is
how it falls
how it falls
how it falls.

Playing God

If you don't know who Warren Buffett is, (well first of all, where have you been?) he is the third.. or maybe second.. wealthiest person in the world. (Yes, Micah, wealth as measured by $$$ ! Not natural resources. :)

This is the greatest article ever. Read the thing in full and be very happy. Now I realize that he's not exactly giving sacrificially. The guy is a billionaire. But there's still something so inspiring about the article:

Buffett Gives Away 85% of his fortune ($37.5 Billion)

It's interesting that Buffett and Bill Gates are turning their attention to charitable matters. Part of me says that's so cool. The other part of me says, it's about time. Spending on yourself gets old pretty fast, "particularly," as he says in the article, "when 6 billion others have much poorer hands than we do in life." I mean, it really only takes a finite amount of money to take care of your own needs. Even your WANTS, in my opinion, have a finite cap to where if you pass it, it just gets ridiculous.

I just always assumed he was a stingy, insulated, crumpedy old man. In this case, I am sooo glad to be wrong.

I read a couple weeks ago that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently gave $5 million to IJM to fight sex trafficking. That is pretty cool.

Imagine being able to dole out huge amounts of resources like that... It's like playing God, right? When we say playing God, we usually mean tinkering with issues of life and death in ways that we have no right to. But when playing God means giving generously and extravagantly, in order to meet human need, and to give hope where there is only desperation and fear... now that's the kind of playing God I can get behind. Hah. That's the kind of expressing God that, to some degree, the Church is free to do.

And no, it's not about the money. While money is remarkably helpful, there's something we can give that's much better, believe it or not. I'll let you consider what that is for yourself.

Visual Thesaurus

This is pretty dang cool.

Two artsy websites

You may be interested in one of these:

Next Generation Consulting
(Although I have no idea why it's all in Times size 10 and pushed up against the left side, but yeah...)

Brewing Culture
They're both about people our age, engaging culture and the arts, and how community relates to all of that.

A special time

There is a special time - literally, a series of numbers on the clock - that when I see them, I feel a sense of peace. I don't want to disclose the specific time, it would be like spilling a secret... though I'm sure I've told some people. But it's like my own personal rainbow covenant with God, you know? How you can see something ordinary and be reminded that everything is gonna be okay? I think what happened a couple years ago is I just kept always looking at the clock when it was at that time, both AM and PM, and it got to the point where I'm like - this can't be coincidence. So maybe I am superstitious. Okay, I can deal with that. But I love my reminder and I got it today...

Which is good cause I'm feeling depressed today. I'll be totally fine but I don't know... just feeling down and stuff. I will come out of it very soon. I'm listening to "Baby It's Cold Outside" (Ella Fitzgerald), "This One's for the Girls" (Martina), and "Life is a Highway" (the remake by Rascal Flatts). Music therapy... :) it is mostly working, too. Music is amazing. I can workout TWICE as long with the right music, I'm not even kidding. I thought of that the other day. It's literally true. Doubling your capacity just from the power of music is pretty amazing. Or, just talking to Amanda, that works pretty well too :) We've been able to work out together more recently. Last night we went to spinning class with a hard rocker! The guy planned heavy rock the whole time. lol Pretty different from the other teacher who plays... ooh baby when you talk like that, you make a woman go mad... Shakira, Shakira... my hips don't lie... listen to my body... lalala... lol

Ditching MySpace

So yeah. I'm on MySpace for just a few more days. The reason I am telling you, my faithful (little, maybe non-existent, nebulous but very loved) blog audience this is because... once I get rid of that distraction, if I do put time into anything, it will be into making this better. Yeah baby! I may even get another domain name someday. But that's getting pretty serious. For now the point is really to cut DOWN on time-wasting, not increase it.. so I definitely won't be doing that before the fall. (Please shoot me if I get too into the blog before my work is done.)

Raleigh Bloggers

So tonight I went to a serendipitous little gathering of the Raleigh Bloggers. Well, it really wasn't serendipitous at all, it was quite planned, but it was funny how I heard about it. I can't remember why but I came across Josh Staiger's site and started commenting like crazy and then even IMing him out of nowhere (HA) and decided this would be a fun thing to attend... and it was!

We talked about all kinds of technological things. They are very smart and you can ask them questions like "what's the best X" or "why hasn't Bill Gates developed X" and they will give you insightful and funny answers. :)

No but really.. they also inspired me to maybe make my blog more of a real writing enterprise rather than just a personal (and quite random) diary. (Not that they said anything about that, but just the meeting itself inspired me that way.) But I love the whole diary thing because I'm obsessed with the freedom to do whatever I want. I don't want to get too serious with this thing, and I certainly don't want to write about certain things and not other things because of what anyone expects. But maybe I could slightly invest more of myself in real punctuation rather than the ever-popular "..." and such. Actually none of you care about this (why are you reading this paragraph!) but yeah. I'm thinking of renaming this thing "sloppy stream of consciousness" because that would be more accurate. I really don't stop to think before I type but hey. It's the internet, and everyone's complaining about alienation and loneliness and stuff. I'm just tryin to keep it real!

Jasmin, I am going to try to recruit you for this group because it was a 4:1 male to female ratio. And you know you love blogging, and you love Raleigh! Admit it!! :) Wow I think you may be the only other girl blogger I really know... since my cousin Julia dropped off the face of the planet with her Xanga (yo what happened?) and Susan never got too into it (though she did quote me directly in her top banner which is funny and great). What are the statistics on gender and blogging?! Has any research been done on this?

Micah, are you gonna start your blog before... well, before Thursday I guess? Are you guys going to have internet access down there in Greenbo?

Wikipediaholic

Signs that you may be addicted to wikipedia and/or procrastination... You go to a coffeeshop to work, order a pesto and prosciutto panini, and the first thing you do is Wikipedia "prosiutto". Haha.

And then you blog about it!

How much worse can it get. Muaaaaaahaha.

I'm in a pretty good mood today. The Hurricanes won the cup. Haha no that's not actually why I'm in a good mood. Things are just good overall. It's summer. I have work to do. I have good friends. I'm drinking an iced coffee. The guy who brought me my sandwich was very nice and Dadlike. I may be going home for a couple weeks in August (ooh! i need to research prices). I ordered some jeans online this morning. I'm irresponsible with money. But that's okay. (Yes I'm still on the list of reasons why I'm in a good mood.) Life is short. Grace is long. Now I'm just making up stuff.

Blogging for the Dixie Chicks

Chicks Magnet

Identify potential dream job - Cheeeeck.

Organ theft

Yesterday at the gym, I watched (well, read the closed captioning for) a CNN special on human organ trafficking in China. Basically, people who can afford it and need replacement organs such as a liver or kidney, go to China. They don't realize it but their new parts are coming from Chinese prisoners. Often times these prisoners are in captivity for simple things such as tax-related crimes. Other times they are there for their political beliefs. And many have testified before the U.S. Congress that they've seen organs extracted from Chinese prisoners while they are still alive. While they are still bleeding and breathing.

Words can't express how sick and sad this report made me. You should have seen some of the images...

Anyway, I don't have time right now to research this and write an informed post, but here are a few links.

Sale of Human Organs in China

Harvesting and sale of body parts

Bolivia's war on poverty

Making economic and social policy is, in my humble opinion, quite possibly the most important thing a government does. Our leaders are elected to make and enforce POLICY, and the ones that deal with money, opportunity, and society are pretty central. Capitalism is the best generator of wealth, yes, but does little or nothing to distribute it fairly. That's where leadership comes in. And no, by fairly I don't mean that everyone should get an equal share... but children shouldn't be abandoned, and the elderly shouldn't be forgotten, and people without homes, food, medical care, education... should not be left to suffer. That's just what I think. We're humans. Come on people. We need each other. I'm not talking utopia or communism. I'm talking about remembering who we are. So I like this article. The specifics can be debated, sure, but why is it big news when a country cares for its people? If you want an even more fascinating article, read about how Morales feels like a prisoner of neo-liberal laws and red-tape.

Bolivia unveils anti-poverty plan
By Daniel Schweimler
BBC South America correspondent

The government of Bolivia has announced a radical plan to reduce poverty and create employment in the poorest country in South America. Almost $7bn (£3.8bn) will be invested in ambitious public works programmes.

The economic plan announced by Planning and Development Minister Carlos Villegas aims to create 100,000 jobs a year for the next five years.

It is the latest measure in a series implemented by President Evo Morales since taking office in January.

The people of South America, and especially Bolivia, have often heard their leaders promise to reduce poverty and create jobs.

But President Morales appears to mean it and many Bolivians believe what he says.

The money will come from the recently nationalised gas industry, supplemented by international lending and foreign investment.

The plan, presented in the presidential palace in La Paz, also aims to deliver more basic public services such as school meals and better access to clean water.

Speedy changes

Since he came to office, Evo Morales, a former cocoa leaf grower, has launched a number of ambitious projects to reduce poverty and close the gap between rich and poor in Bolivia.

He cut wages in the public sector, including his own, and sent troops in to take control of oil and gas installations after he nationalised the industries. He has forged links with Venezuela and Cuba and worries Washington.

Few in Bolivia deny that the country needs radical changes.

The speed with which President Morales has moved to implement those changes has delighted his supporters, but left wealthy Bolivians and foreign investors nervous and uncertain how they should react.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5090850.stm

Iamsoexcitedaboutthis

My own wiki, which you can edit

Or you can create your own

TRULY ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES! GLORIOUS TECHNOLOGY!!

Artisan, fresh-baked bread

All this restaurant copywriting is making me want to BAKE SOME BREAD NOW!! Maybe if I finish this brochure I could reward myself with that. Mmmmmmmmm. Maybe we could all do that tonight - peeps? What are our plans?? Not that any of you read this to find out your Friday night plans. Haha. BUT YOU SHOULD. And that's what's important.

Yeaaaaaaaah

And speaking of loud music, there's nothing better than Coldplay doing "In My Place" live...

In my place, in my place were lines that I couldn't change
I was lost, oh yeah...

And I was lost, I was lost
Crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed
I was lost, oh yeah.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
How long must you wait for him?
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
How long must you pay for it?
Yeaaaaaaaaaaah, how long must you wait for him? ...

Loud music

I'll let this crazy, talked-up ipod issue die, but I need to say one last thing:

There is nothing like listening to music really loud on your ipod. There just isn't. The sound quality is SO GOOD! You can get lost your own sonic universe (while forfeiting your future ability to HEAR things, yes, but it's worth it...)

It sounded amazing before, but maybe it's just that now, having lost and found it, the sound is even fuller and sweeter and better and less... granted.

And, to all you modern country music haters out there (you know who you are), groups like Rascal Flatts are the best for moments like this. Lots of bass, really clear vocals... ohhh yes.

I really love singing along to something so loud that I can almost not even hear myself. You know, that would frighten someone from ancient times. HA. I wonder what people did back then... the people that today love hard rock and moshing and thrashing around and blasting the bass as loud as possible. Surely those people existed pre-electricity... what did they do? Or people that love adventure sports today... maybe it's that daily life was filled with much more adventure back then? More opportunities for risk, love, and bloodshed. Would they think we are insulated from adventure, or far more adventurous and fast? What parts of our lives would they be sad to have missed out on (restaurants, washing machines, email possibly) and what parts would they just feel pity for us about (loneliness and separation, housing payments, lights that extend our work day long beyond daylight)?

Hmmm... makes me want to be fully alive. When have I, when do I feel most alive? Why is loud music a kind of therapy? Why is getting lost in loud music the same sort of escape as getting lost in a movie, or even lucid dreaming?

Oh, you know what? It's the same sort of emotional high you get singing your heart out at a mega-church worship service. Or is it the same? I kinda miss that, to be honest. Maybe it comes down to expression. Or communication. I like mega-church worship (quit it, you instituational church-haters!)... but I do, I like it because I can be totally anonymous before God. Well that's ironic and false... anonymous before God... ha... I mean anonymous before people and totally known WITH GOD. This is the most rambling, crazy blog entry ever. I am going to get back to actual writing at some point.

Anonymous before God. That, my friends, is an oxymoron. I am going to have to name my first book or my first child that. Of course if a child gets the name, I'll translate it to Hebrew or something. :)

Morning Rain

It's dark and pouring rain. It was really hard to get up this morning...

I thought I had more to say but really just the rain. It is speaking for itself today.

US biggest global peace threat

People in European and Muslim countries see US policy in Iraq as a bigger threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear programme, a survey has shown.

Recovered ipod and my Dad my soulmate

Can I get a shout-out for the Raleigh PO-lice! Yeeeeeeeeeeahhh Detective F!! He found my ipoddddddddddddddddddddddddd!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I love you St. Jude, my friends, Detective F, and of course J to the C.

No but really.. it's amazing I think. All I can think is that if I lived most anywhere else in the world, they wouldn't even take my report seriously, let alone investigate it and RECOVER my stolen item!

There's still some story left to explain... the detective was on his way to bring it to me about half an hour ago, when some car hit him from behind so he's tied up downtown with a fender bender type thingy. But I'll get it tomorrow. Anyway he went to this guy's apartment. We think it may have actually been his roommate borrowing his gym ID. Whatevah. I just can't believe it.

I have had an amazingly good news day. I GOT THIS AMAZING PROJECT to work on. Maybe the best thing was talking to my Dad afterwards. I can't remember what he said but something about being proud of me.... all I can remember is he said something that conveyed he knows I've been pushing through a lot of feelings lately to even get to this point. I feel overwhelmed, inadequate, restless, confused... feel like quitting. I just want to quit everything, what's up with that? I am a mess of emotions lately and I can't even quite figure out why. But my Dad understands me. He's pretty much my soulmate in this world. My Dad-soulmate. :) I can't imagine life without him. Gosh. I didn't start this paragraph to be about my Dad but you know, that's sort of what means the most. Not that I hit another little career milestone (which I most definitely did today), but that someone that I love saw me hit it and knows how it feels for me. Now I feel like crying. Excellent. Isn't stream of consciousness writing great...

Cross your fingers

Just spent the whole morning at the gym. THE WHOLE MORNING. Had a chiropractor appointment then my training with Malak then my workout, which of course was painfully boring and slow due to my lack of music.

So then I went down to the front desk and talked to the manager. THANK God he was responsive, and we ended up spending the next 1-2 hours looking though security video footage and also checking the gym records for who had checked in that evening. We caught the guy taking the ipod on video! At 10:40, a guy switched from his treadmill to the one I had been on, waited till everyone was off that row of treadmills, AND STOLE IT!!! He clearly looked around, picked up the ipod, wound the headphones around it, and put it in his pocket. Amazingly he stayed in the gym a long time after that doing abs and weights. It was so late that hardly anyone was around, so I guess that's why he wasn't too worried about hanging around.

The only complication is that the camera was far from the treadmill, so it's difficult to identify him with 100% certainty. We narrowed it down to 2 guys, though. We have a police officer on it and he may even visit their homes this afternoon.

Pleeeeeeeeease let my little musical machine be recovered!!!

Jesus in New Orleans

The last time I saw Jesus
I was drinking bloody marys in the South
In a barroom in New Orleans
Rinsin' out the bad taste in my mouth

She wore a dark and faded blazer
With a little of the lining hanging out
When the jukebox played Miss Dorothy Moore
I knew that it was him without a doubt

I said the road is my redeemer
I never know just what on earth I'll find
In the faces of a stranger
In the dark and weary corners of a mind

She said, The last highway is only
As far away as you are from yourself
And no matter just how bad it gets
It does no good to blame somebody else

Ain't it crazy
What's revealed when you're not looking all that close
Ain't it crazy
How we put to death the ones we need the most

I know I'm not a martyr
I've never died for anyone but me
The last frontier is only
The stranger in the mirror that I see

But when I least expect it
Here and there I see my savior's face
He's still my favorite loser
Falling for the entire human race



words: Bergquist and Detweiler
music: Bergquist
recording: OHIO

Pray to St. Jude will ya?

Isn't St. Jude the guy you pray to for lost things like car keys and lost causes like people?

Because I lost my ipod.

:-(

I lost it at the gym, I think... left it on a treadmill. It's a brand new video ipod. Kinda makes me sick to think of how it's lost... I mean who cares right, but it still sucks quite a bit. My last bit of hope is that the gym is supposed to be reviewing their security video footage but the guy I asked about it is totally dragging his feet on it. My brother just gave me a pep talk about going in there tomorrow and demanding results from the manager.

Anyway I got that ipod for my birthday in February from my parents. The deal was that I would send my brother my super old ipod cause he didn't have one... the super old one was something my Dad won at this conference years and years ago. It was 2nd generation but it still works great.

Saaaaaaaaaad. Let's hope it is recovered. Working out definitely sucks without it, as well as driving for any substantial distance.

My digital camera just broke, too. Is God trying to rid me of technological idolatry or something? NOT COOL.

Christian vs. Christian on AIDS

This is a truly interesting article:

Rift Opens Among Evangelicals on AIDS Funding

For one thing, it's definitely shocking where Pat Robertson comes down on the issue. And for another... it's just interesting. (Man I am sooooooo tired that's all I can offer. lol)

Brangelina

Wow, so, I'm working on this proposal for (don't laugh)... Brad and Angelina. I kid you not. And I don't think I should go on about the details here. I thought it was pretty far-fetched and ridiculous when this was first assigned to me...

But the more online research I do, and collaborating with my graphic designer friend, and laying out the components of this proposal... the more I'm shocked that this may actually be an awesome idea... especially from a business perspective. Wow.

I can't believe I'm getting paid to research Brangelina. lol And Starbucks and the United Nations and the ONE Campaign and so many other cool things.

In other news, I went to lunch with this lady who is a "relocation transition coach." (It was for networking purposes, I suppose...) She was very Mom-ish in a way... well, she is a trained counselor, and it really shows. She listens well, but she also talks very well - slowly, and clearly, and unapologetically... without any nervousness at all. It just really put me at ease talking with her. No that's not necessarily what I want to say... hmmm. It made me realize how some people are so gifted in that relationship-nurturing way. I want to be that kind of person. Lately I feel like I've been super hurried in everything... I can't slow down to read or have a conversation very well. And I love being oblivious to time like that. So hopefully it can be regained.

Well, actually, I'm giving myself a hard time. I mean we had a fun and relaxed time last night. Okay so I guess I am just spastic at times (rather than all the time). Cool. I can handle spastic from time to time.

Time management

Drew gave me the greatest gift last night which was several hours of his time to get all MY time in order. I've been totally paralyzed from project overload, unable to move forward at all. He made me come home, write out everything, assign how many hours it would take to get each thing done, and what deadline I had for each project. Then we printed out my June calendar and he scheduled every single day for me.

I am sooooooooo relieved. Well it's still a little intimidating but this is good. And he's already big on accountability cause he called to check. Haha. (I had to do 3 hours on one project today. yeah! It's done! Which is why I am free to blog. :)

Which brings me to my point, which is ... (drum roll)... my list of DISTRACTIONS! Curt suggested I write this list up and look at it during the day and keep reminding myself that none of these things are work and must be saved till after work is done. Very good idea, Curt Nasty! So here we go... let me know if you see yourself in this list. hehe.

Distractions

NONE of these are work.

MySpace
Gmail
News/personalized google
Txt msging
IM
Wikipedia/fun research
Playing with photos / flickr
iTunes / half.com / amazon.com
Cleaning house and doing laundry
Shopping
Blogging
Reading other people’s blogs
Planning social time
Talking to friends and family on the phone
Updating websites