Today I had the distinct pleasure (no actual sarcasm here) of attending all three Masses.  One of the guys from our That Man Is You fellowship was up talking, and I stood up there with him and helped him pass out brochures after Mass.  During his talk he introduced me and told the congregation that I was going to talk about the program in some detail next week (which I am).  I’m looking forward to it, but I’m a little nervous.

After the marathon Church session, Tasha and I headed out to Denny’s for lunch and then home for some relaxation prior to a game night at The Ballews.  Just like that, another weekend disappears!  This week is going to be a whirlwind at work, so I’m going to have to find some weeknights to unwind between here and there.  Cross your fingers for me!

Today was a busy day and began with some time spent hanging out with my good buddy, Jeremy.  He is a very adept nerd in the area of audio equipment, so we went to his place so I could hear his setup which has largely been handcrafted from thrift store equipment and it sounded AMAZING.  He also surprised me with a set of his highly modified speakers so I could get started on my own rig.  Shortly thereafter, we were perusing some local thrift stores for equipment.

Jeremy delights in taking old discarded equipment and stripping them down for components, then using those components to create an excellent audio experience.  We struck out on the audio equipment front, but we did find a cache of old vinyl.  I added 7 new records to my collection and spent less than $8, he added another 25.  I got stuff from Billy Joel, Elton John, Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, and for some reason I don’t quite understand Godspell.  I think I remember my Mom really liking that musical and for $1 I didn’t question my gut.

After that I had to go and get my final measurements for my tuxedo sorted out.  It went smoothly and it is currently being tailored so I can pick it up next weekend.  I also had a 40% off coupon that came through my email, as well as other sales.  Eric, the person helping me out at Men’s Wearhouse, took very good care of me and had found a tux that was 50% off, shoes that were 50% off, and applied the 40% for the coupon so I made out pretty well.  While I was standing at the checkout, I decided to pick up an extra shirt too.

To wrap up the day, I went to Church.  In light of the big Denver game (which turned out disastrous), we opted to change the format slightly so we could keep it short for everyone that wanted to watch the game.  So I ended up just going to to the front of the Church and getting introduced and didn’t have to do any talking yet.  It was a nice primer to get used to having a few hundred people staring at me again.  Next week it will be my turn though!

Tomorrow I will be doing that same thing three more times, then lunch followed by a get-together with our friends.  Where did this weekend go?

It’s cold outside, I have a headache, and I haven’t been sleeping well.  Normally you can chalk this up to work-related stress, but work has been relatively stress-free these days aside from the life-sapping efforts I have undertaken to document the current state of morale in our work teams.  I can’t really say much more about that, but suffice it to say it’s taking both time and energy.

What I really need to do is get a decent night’s sleep.  I had some mild success using Breathe Right strips while I was home over the Christmas break, so I might try that and some Benadryl which always seems to knock me out for awhile.  Before those of you that worry begin worrying, no I am not having this problem all the time and no I don’t take Benadryl exclusively to knock myself out.  You guys worry too much.

This weekend we have many things planned: I have to pick up my tux (it’s here, woo!) and then I have to speak at all four Masses this weekend to advocate for That Man Is You!  It should be a good time.

Not much to report on tonight… we got some snow here in Westminster so I was a little late coming home from work, which meant I had to turn around and make it to Church quickly for my Knights of Columbus meeting.  The meeting ran long, and then I had to de-ice my car and slowly make it back home.  I spent the rest of the night doing some small chores and trying to unwind for bed, and here we are.

I’ve been on a minor roll at work lately, so far 2012 is going pretty darned good.  Here’s to hoping I haven’t just jinxed it!

Over Christmas break, my cousin showed me Rocksmith: a game that allows you to plug in with a real guitar and learn songs.  All of the reviews claim that the game is too much of a niche, appealing only to people that like Rock Band and also want to try to learn the guitar.  Niche or not, I like both of those things so I’m thinking about picking it up.

This would accomplish two things: I would get to play the Xbox more often and I would get to play my guitar more often.  I’m still on the fence, so we’ll see.  That’s all for now!

Tonight I got together with a few guys from my That Man Is You! group at church.  I was asked to get up at the end of Mass and talk about the program and my impressions of the first semester of talks, so tonight was a planning meeting to figure out the structure of what we’re going to say.  Because the group focuses so much on the small group discussions and the age range is wide, we decided to do a combined talk where one of the more experienced (older) guys is going to get up with me and we’ll tag-team it.  He will tell about the overall program and how it affected him and then I will and talk about how specific sessions run and what I get from hearing the life experiences and cautionary tales of the older guys.

I also found out tonight that the older guy won’t be around the following weekend, so I will have to fly solo for those Masses.  It’s been quite awhile since I’ve spoken in front of a group of people so large, so it’s going to be a return to my high school days and the few times I had to speak in front of an auditorium full of employees at work.  I haven’t acquired enough experience at speaking in front of groups to not be nervous, but I tend to have a knack for it so I’m sure it will turn out ok.

So if you need me the next two weekends, I’ll probably be at Church.

It’s update time on this one:

Goal 3: Read more books, targeting 10 non-fiction books for the year.

Task 1: Finish reading ‘Leadership Gold’ by John C. Maxwell, for half-credit.

I was able to complete this task, I finished reading the last of ‘Leadership Gold’ while airborne between Omaha and Denver.  Many of the lessons that John Maxwell talks about really resonated with me, especially given the current condition of my workplace.  It is very interesting to read leadership books sitting in my current job role, where I am aware of the decisions and the decision-making process of those above me but also in touch daily with the results of that process.  This book really crystallized some of the anecdotal evidence that I’ve been collecting about where leadership fails at my workplace.

Not being one to consider myself perfect, I also had to take stock and figure out if I was contributing to the problem, either in mindset or by my actions.  I took away a few corrective actions I can make now, and a wealth of cautionary tales.  Whether our not my own leadership chooses to make changes, I hope that the experience of reading this book will help me be more educated and not repeat the mistakes that I can observe.

Now it’s time to set a new task so this goal keeps on a-rollin’:

Task 2: Finish reading Ervin Somogyi’s ‘The Responsive Guitar’ for half-credit.

This one is in support of my guitar building hobby as well as my desire to finish up reading books that I have started.  This one may take a bit longer to complete, since Somogyi’s book is considerably academic in nature and can be a more difficult read.  I really want to make the effort to get through and understand this one before I move into his next book and get further into completing my first guitar (see previous goals post).

Total Books Read in 2012: 0.5 / 10

Got up and out to the chiropractor’s office today.  I’m glad I went, my neck has been bothering me since I fell in mid-December and an adjustment helped it out quite a bit today.  After that, we grabbed some lunch and then came home so Eve could nap while Tasha and I relaxed a bit and then it was off to Michelle and Ed’s house for some Pandemic.

Michelle makes a shepherd’s pie (technically cottage pie because it uses beef) and it is PHENOMENAL.  She made it for us shortly after Eve was born and it contains a ton of things that I like: cheese, mashed potatoes, beef, and biscuits.  The only thing that could possibly make it better is if someone put some bacon in there, but suffice it to say I am still full as I write this.  Gaming with them was fun!  Eve had a new experience tonight… Ed and Michelle have some very well-mannered cats, and Eve grabbed one of them (named Gandalf) by the tail.  Gandalf was really cool about it, but Eve had a death grip on that thing and was thrilled with herself.  We quickly ran to Gandalf’s aid and Eve went back to playing with her toys.

The rest of the night was spent doing some chores and relaxing.  I played one of my new guitars for awhile and surfed around on the Internet, and now I’m spending some time relaxing and listening to The Beatles.  Life is good!

Today was my buddy Bruce’s going-away lunch, and he wanted to eat at Quaker Steak & Lube.  This place is known for it’s wings, and since I’ve never really tried wings before I opted to try something new.  Not one to go small, I opted to try 3 wings from the hottest sauce in the “HOT” category and three wings from the lower of the two “INSANE” sauces.

I started with the HOT category wing.  It was hot, intense, but not too crazy… then I decided to move on to the INSANE wing.  I went with a half of a wing just to see how it went… and that was all I ate of that particular variety.  The taste of the wing was better than the first wing, but the heat started coming on stronger and stronger until it was basically just abject pain for 15 minutes or so.  The worst part about it was the nagging desire to attempt to eat more of that sauce, but I opted for caution and went back to the HOT variety.  It seemed timid in comparison… it was very interesting to me the relative difference after I tried something orders of magnitude hotter.

So I got a bumper sticker that proclaims me a Atomic Sauce Survivor and some good memories were had.  So far, no meaningful fallout from the process either… time will tell whether or not I regret things on the other side.

Right before I left for my business trip, a large box arrived at my house that contained the guitars that shipped from my cousin, John.  John is the owner/operator of a business called Custom-Relics that creates guitars inspired by famous artists or customized just for you.  Since I run his website for him, he made me two special guitars in payment (as is our deal).

The first guitar I got was a thinline rosewood telecaster with a Bigsby B-16 bridge (on the left in the photo).  I asked John for something similar to that because I like rosewood, and the inspiration for the bridge (that proved to be John’s bane) came from a posting on the Unofficial Warmoth forums.  I thought it was unique looking, and asked for it.

The guitar in the center is my Made In Mexico strat, which was in John’s care to get the pickups rewired.  This guitar was the project guitar that he and I were working on in December of 2009, adding Klein pickups.  At the time, we left quite a solder mess in there and John replaced the pickups and rewired it using the experience that he gained since then.

The guitar on the right was a surprise/Christmas gift.  John informed me that he was building me a unique strat and I would get very little additional information about it until I got it.  On Christmas, he surprised me with it… the paint job inspired it’s new name (Boba Fett), and the neck shape is the same shape as my Les Paul… big and fat.  I have spent quite some time with it since I unboxed it last night, I really love the guitar.

Having all these nice axes is great… I need to play more and learn some lead stuff so I can properly enjoy these instruments.  Thanks John, you’re the best!