Trust.

So here it is, Wednesday night and I'm taking a break from working on my job search. What I have I come up with? A few leads, some interviews... I have been weighing pros and cons of working in different places and more than anything am not only excited to see what will happen, but am learning a lot about business, ethics, people, myself and trust in God.

Maybe I should be worried, but I'm not.

There are a few things in my life I really like and do not want to give up, but my bottom line needs to be open to where God would have me. Not necessairly to keep my options open, but to trust that I'll be provided for and act on the clearest path that lay in front of me. My thoughts are eminating from these passages of scripture, expanded upon in a study at my place earlier this evening:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

Through it all I have a caring family, great friends and lots of folks who watch out for me. How lucky can a guy be? To trust (and be able to give everything up) and not be afraid of that could be the biggest lesson I am learning in all of this.

Will blog for food...

So in the last post I mentioned my resume work. Here is the short of what's going on:

I work for a small software firm.
The software firm has contracts.
Where I work accepts contract bids.
2 large companies placed bids on the contract where I currently work.
The other company won.
My last official day of work is September 30, 2005.

So now if you check posts every so often you will get to see how I handle this entire situation. I'll be thinking a lot, working on my resume, cover letters and the like and will be looking for work. First I'd mention not to worry about me ;) I have lots of great camping supplies and may be able to get a short vacation before possibly starting work somewhere else? Lot's of variables to take into account and I'll type more as time goes on.

Right now I'm thinking this is the order I'd like to look for jobs geographically:
- Blacksburg & surrounding areas (Christiansburg or Radford)
- Roanoke / Salem
- North Carolina
- Washington, D.C.
- Somewhere crazy (I hear there are quite a few jobs in San Diego)

That's all for now.

Weekends in Floyd...

So much to post since the last update, it's only been a week, but if you check this blog out regularly you know that a LOT of things are bound to happen with me in that time period. First I'll recap the weekend! And what a weekend it was:
Friday night after work I headed out with Curt, Jilian and a friend (see below) to Floyd to do some flat footing at the Country Store. I still don't think there are too many better ways to spend a Friday evening than in Floyd around here. Of course that all depends on who you spend it with. And for the first time blogging I'll mention that I am dating a young woman. I usually keep such things out of posts and have made it a rule not to post about such things, but I think since much of my time was spent with her this weekend I shall break the rule.

Erin Collins is her name and she is one of the most wonderful persons I have had the opportunity to meet. If you in a room with her you'd know it. How? Well, first off she'd likely introduce herself. Next thing you'd notice is that she not only listens, but takes a genuine interest in what you are saying. She asks all kinds of questions and will remember the answers the next time she sees you. I could write much more, but it shall suffice to know that I am dating someone that I can't really describe.

Saturday morning Erin and I were to head out rock climbing with the Montgomery County Parks & Recreation dept. However after riding out to Bozoo, WV it was raining and the rocks were too slippery to climb safely. So we headed back to Blacksburg where we hit up the farmer's marker to buy ingredients for making dinner. Next we watched a little Lord of the Rings II before getting ready for a night of camping, dancing and having a blast.

We set up camp off of the Blue Ridge Parkway (place called Rocky Knob) in the rain (reminder to Rex: Buy a tarp) and grilled Italian Chicken. We ate dinner in Curt's 8 man tent before heading to Floyd. In Floyd I square danced, 'nuff said. Later we returned (we = Erin, Betsy, Curt & myself) to camp to play 'Moods' the boardgame. Sunday was very relaxed. Woke up, did some reading, tore down camp, saw a Rastapillar (a catepillar that looked like it had dread-locks), threw the frisbee and caught dunch (lunch + dinner) at the Texas Roadhouse. From there I went home, passed out and worked on my resume...

10 minutes

I happen to be sitting in a middle school of all places, with a good bit on my mind. But being assured I have but 10 minutes remaining here I shall list the things that can be done in such a time period:

- Thinking
- Searching through stuff
- A little cha-cha
- Humming
- Being hit by a book
- Answering the phone
- Loosing a cell phone connection
- Coughing
- Filing
- Hand off chap-stick
- Folding Paper
- Placing signs on desks
- Exchanging books between bags
- Eating Onion Ring Chips
- Walking out of the door...

A few more pictures from the Gauley...

Guess who is going to Floyd tonght?

Organizing for the Fall

Thursday afternoon. Running through my mind is work, lots of it and how I can best break things down and get things in the right order. Funny because the same thing is happening with my outside of work life. I sort of take a breather before each season (much of it runs around a college type schedule with Virginia Tech being in town). I like to kind of take a big picture view of my Spring, Summer and Fall. Fall always finds itself busy with football games galore, hiking, camping, and all kinds of other outdoor activities.

I always find it interesting because I'm not too good at it. I'm much more of a live in the now type person, so looking months down the road and planning things seems too abstract. Just the whole concept we have of the future and the past are pretty interesting when you think about them. This past is something that we have been through, but the future has no tangibles. It's like in our mind we create time that has never existed. It's helpful so that when the future becomes the present we are prepared. Even in the memories of the past there is the act of remembrance, which is present specific. But between past, present and future the only one we continuously touch and interact with is the present. I think that's why I hold it to be of the most importance in my own life.

Rafting with the D.C. group

So this past weekend entailed some camping in an open meadow and some White Water Rafting (via ACE Adventures) in Oak Hill, WV. The group of friends I went with included Pete (from running fame) and 5 of his friends from his bible study. If you know Pete you will know these were some interesting folks! Here is how I recall some of the weekend:



Friday night I worked late, had some pretty important things I needed to be at work for. Headed out of town around 6:30pm and arrived in Oak Hill around 8:15. I decided to drive through town knowing the D.C. gang would not arrive until later that evening (and they arrived later ;) I headed to Wal-mart to check out where all the town's action was going down. A couple things caught me off guard. First off the Wal-Mart was a normal Wal-mart. I am so used to 'Super' Wal-marts that it took me by surprise. Mainly because they have a closing hour and no real food section. Secondly I went back to check out the camping/fishing/hunting section which was HUGE, had to be 3x the normal Wal-mart section. I should not have been surprised being out in the middle of West Virginia though.

I head to ACE, set up camp and realize the mantle on my lantern is busted after unpacking the car. So what do I do? Pack the car up and head back to Wal-mart. Showed up 5min before close (10:55pm) and picked up what I needed before heading back to ACE and setting up the 6-man tent. The night grew later and I went to bed around 1am, completly exhausted from a long week of work. 3am? arrives and the D.C. group rolls in. We had a few laughs, a few more laughs and fell asleep.

Saturday was full of rafting in Duckies (inflatable kayaks) as the water level was low. This is a great first way to experiance the Gauley in my opinion. You are able to take in the scenery without having to look over or around people and can take the river at your own pace. I took plenty of pictures with the water camera and will post them when they are developed. Hope they come out! My most memorable experiance experiance came at a place called "Iron Ring", it is a class 5 and right after lunch there was a dam release so the water was a good bit higher than when we started. 400 cfs (cubic feet / second) of water to 800+ cfs makes a big difference in duckies.

I hit the first drop well, but then was caught on a rather large boulder (called Woodstock). I leaned into the rock and was making progress until I got the craft about half-way into the next falls. At that point my duckie went sideways end-over-end and I was tossed like a rag doll underneath of it. The reason why this was memorable is not because of the falling out but rather because of my body being scraped along (the rounded and thus no scrapes/scratches) rock and while my feet were down (a no no when thrown from a boat, but I was too disoriented to do anything about it) my right foot got caught in a hole. Though very briefly, I felt a large stick and rocks all around. My Sandal got trapped and because only the front of my foot got trapped it ripped the front strap off of my foot. It was pretty disturbing since the front strap was tightened well. Just glad my whole foot was not swallowed into the hole, that would not have been pretty.

That night we had dinner at a good NC style BBQ and Rib joint and had our picture taken with the owners! The service was great and the food perfect after a day on the river. The trip home was a quick 2 hours and I took a nap upon returning. I'm not real sore, but the muscles are pretty tired today.

So there was the weekend, looking forward to Gauley Season and another trip September 25th!

The Dukes of Floyd

This passed weekend the 'Dukes of Hazzard' came out on the big screen. Although I grew up on this show I did not see the movie and am not sure if I will in the long run. Perhaps I like to remember the show (in all its southern glory) as it was when I grew up. Plus my tastes have changed and although it may be a rental, I don't see going to see it. But I am not writing to say what I did not do, but rather what I did this weekend.

Friday night I headed down to Floyd country for the Friday night Jamboree. What is this Jamboree? Imagine going back about 50 years to a place where people sat on their porches and the main form of entertainment was not television, but rather telling stories. Where music was played, not primarily to entertain, but for the love of the music and as an avenue to (once again) tell stories. This is what the small town of Floyd is. Every Friday night (minus 2: Christmas & Thanksgiving, I think) people come from all around to play bluegrass music. Fiddles, guitars, the bass, banjos, mandolins come out of the woodwork (like the pun?) and alive in not only the 'Floyd Country Store' but also on the streets of Floyd. People just pull out lawn chairs and start playing and next thing you know there are makeshift bands in the streets! Another interesting fact is that Floyd is one of the 2 places voted as the best to listen to bluegrass music in the world! Not only is the music great, but so are the people. So nice and down home. It's like being surrounded by nice Grandparents (most of the crowd is of the older set). I even met Roni Stoneman from one of my childhood shows 'Hee Haw'. I'll be heading back soon.

After Floyd Curt has an idea to surprise some friends who were watching the "Dukes of Hazzard" in Roanoke. But not just any surprise... Rumor has it these friends had dressed up to go see the movie, so Curt and I did the same. We headed over to his place, looked at the "Dukes of Hazzard" DVD that he owned to see what kind of clothing we would be looking for. Well, I have to say when I saw the box and realized it was flannel shirts with no t-shirt I was a bit confounded. An odd look by far, but if that's what it was going to take... Ended up driving up in Curt's Jeep (see the Dukes of Hazzard Jeep) and rolled around the city of Roanoke blasting the song from the TV Show. Ended the night dancing at Corn Beef & Co. a local dance club. All in all a good night. And that was just Friday...

Top Ten reasons to love where I work:

here are my top 10 reasons to love the Bunker (from Rob Mcaden):

10. Strawberries delivered

9. Smoke breaks

8. Fitness center / gym access

7. Ultimate frisbee on the roof

6. 80's music Tuesday

5. Chili days

4. The blast of air you get when entering the bunker

3. It's within an hour of Roanoke

2. No annoying glare from sunlight on your monitor

1. Joel & Co.

Flying to the weekend.

Can't believe it is Thursday already! The week is flying by and I attribute part of that to the fact that I have been pretty busy at work. On the flip side I have been getting to bed at decent times and it has made all of the difference. Well that and resuming training for the RnR half-marathon that comes up in a little over 5 weeks. So I've needed the sleep. The good news is these past few days the runs have not left me hurting at all, I'm not in the best endurance shape, but there is time to fix that.

Life has been really good lately overall. I am hoping to post some pictures from the family reunion, last time I tried blogger was acting funny and not letting me post. So we shall see. Not really too many thought going through my mind, just what I need to be doing next. In the 'things to look forward to' category this weekend looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. Friday night the plans are secret, Saturday will be tubing, the 'Steppin Out' street fair that is held annually in Blacksburg, followed by me doing some cooking for some friends. Sunday, I will wake up and hit 8 miles on the Huckleberry then I am helping out with the little kids at NorthStar then am leading a hike for all those interested to the cascades. After that? I'm napping.

I can hardly wait!