Lest Blood Be Shed

You know I love blog posts that inform you that no posts have been made to the blog in a while and that the author is totally sorry about it.  Well, this is one such post but I'm really not that sorry about it.  I've been having a wonderful time acclimating to the world here in NYC and really just haven't had time to post stuff.  I will be making soap again soon so if you are here for that... stay tuned.  

The real impetus behind this post is to link over to another blog post I did for a Presbyterian organization.  You can read the post here: Psalms Modern Blog

Here's a taste:

God of Destruction

Amos 4:1
"Hear this word, you fat cows on Mount Samaria,
you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy
and say to your husbands, "Bring us some drinks!" "

What a ride this week has been: from temperature swings of 50 degrees, finding out America tortures, to the PCUSA once again voting against inclusion. It all seems so tumultuous but then again that's what Spring is all about. We are changing seasons. We are moving from the cold introversion and self-reflection of winter to the warmth of rebirth and community. As I was laying in the sun basking in this new found change in the weather, I came to realize something about my theology that was missing. For all of this new Spring life to appear, something needs to be destroyed first. God is a god of destruction. At first this sounded blasphemous to my uber-liberal-god-is-all-love ears but the more I meditated on it and upon the prophet Amos, which I had been reading this week, I came to find peace and a sense of joy in God breaking things we hold to be unchanging facts. God destroyed death in the resurrection of Christ. God overturned life and walked with us. God destroyed the power of sin.

Since starting my new j-o-b I've found that my eating habits have changed drastically. When I was in Rensselaer the way lunch was coordinated was individualized. Our assigned lunch times were so different that we often ate alone. Granted we would break these rules sometimes and order a pizza or something. So for most days my meal consisted of soup and maybe a sandwich and a salad. Now that I'm in New York, I work though lunch and the department that I work in is very communal in its lunch time. Since we work through lunch we often order out for delivery. These foods are not the most healthy choices for sure and the portions are huge! I've tried to mitigate this change in diet by walking half a mile before and after work (to and from Grand Central). My belly has started to grow! I've never been in this situation where I didn't just eat what I wanted. I've thought about bringing my lunch but the peer-pressure is amazing... almost worse than church peer-pressure. It really is a tight-knit community. So, the next logical step is to exercise more. I already do yoga twice a week but obviously that's not enough. I'm really at a loss when it comes to "fitness." So being the flabby internet guy, I hopped onto youtube to see if there were any workout programs. I ended up finding a free site (sparkpeople.com
) that suggests workouts based on questions you answer. It even gives you a meal plan if you want one or you can just track your food intake. I'm still waiting to find a catch for it being free but it hasn't popped up. They must make all their money off of ads, which don't really interest me.

Well that was a quick search. I have been offered a position for a "competitive salary" at an awesome place. I had 3 rounds of interviews and each one was fantastic. I start Thursday! They are fedex'ing me the official offer tonight!

Now that CPE is finished I have to find a job. I've actually already posted my resume to monster and careerbuilder and it's crazy the number of agencies that place people that have called me. It's also crazy people from Buffalo, NY that try and get me to move! I didn't move to NYC to work in Buffalo. I think my toughest sell is going to be the salary that I'm requesting. Because the cost of living was so low in Indiana I got paid a fairly good wage but out here in NY that wage is nothing (as far as compensation for actual job/skill equality). I'm looking forward to the search.

In preparation for the "background" checks that the jobs are going to do for me, I've googled myself. It's actually kinda funny how old some of the stuff that shows up is. I think a big bonus is actually an article on this site. When I wrote Asterisk on OpenWRT, quite a few tech websites picked up the article and plastered it all over the Internet. My server actually went down (I was running it off a DSL connection) and I had to move it to a few T1s.

I can't wait to have my first NYC job!

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