Eamon Burke

Beep Beep

Not brutality, just murder. At least Brutus was friends with Caesar, and had something to gain.

In case you hadn't heard, some police in California shot a guy in the back while pinned on the ground, presumably for being so damned agreeable.

I detest everything the world has made these people into, everything that causes this kind of senseless violence to run rampant, from Oakland to Gaza to Georgia, everything that makes anyone in their comfortable house or office feel that somehow, it is justifiable, on any scale.

/copied from my blog at askeamon.com, to boost google search hits.

"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish."

*I dont really stop reading books that I start, very often.*

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov (i'm going to read it in the next month or so though as well!)
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
Zatoichi
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Quicksilver Exposition
Wicked
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys (on my list as well)
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club.
Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

*On the rare occassion that I do start and don't finish a book, it is usually a complete condemnation of the work.*

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks (currently reading)
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

WHERE'S THE MUTHER EFFING JOBS?!


CRAP. I'm not a nurse! There's a LOT of people out there who aren't nurses. Like, most of us.

I want a job, and not a nursing job. Crap.

( My journal entry is under the cut )

Making this post on a G1 at the t-mobile store! Its great, pretty much.. resist the urge to buy this with half your check...resist...

So how's it going having a preganant wife?

Oh, maybe it's just me.

Zing!

"It’s obviously unfair to dislike a song because of the appearance of the band that recorded it. Yet the very sound of “Two Princes” evokes the way the Spin Doctors looked. With its riff repeated long past endurance, dopey lyrics and abominable vocal scatting, it could only have been the work of scrabbly beared, questionably hatted, red-eyed stoners staggering out of the rehearsal room convinced they have discovered the missing link between grunge, the Grateful Dead and Jamiroquai — blissfully unaware that no one in his right mind was looking for that in the first place."
-Blender

I couldn't have said it better myself. It may have been the fact that it's 1:30 am, but that slayed me!

I think this kind of thing is what Livejournal is for.

Eamon

Comment and I will....

a) Tell you why I friended you.

b) Associate you with something -- a fandom, song, color, photo, etc.

c) Tell you something I like about you.

d) Tell you a memory I have of you.

e) Ask you something I've wanted to know about you

f) Tell you my favorite userpic from your list

g) In return, you need to post this on your own LJ.

and...GO!

Hey, I have a website now! Check it suckas!
Askeamon.com/blog

( A fun fill out thingy! Do it for me, do it for yourself. )

Don't forget to go to askeamon.com for my stuff! Whatever stuff that is.

I LOL'd.

So I have my own site now, thanks to Cameron! It's at
askeamon.com
!
So I'm pretty much trying to blog on there now. Also, it's a forum for people to pester my brain and utilize my need to research things.

Dear family members: Nothing. Is. Happening. I hate phones. I don't get it. If you don't like, say, instant messaging, because you type like crap and don't want to sit in front of the computer and hate the crap AOL or MSN gives you, YOU AREN'T EXPECTED TO INSTANT MESSAGE EVERYONE YOU BLEEPING KNOW JUST TO CHAT FOR KICKS AND GIGGLES.
I
HATE
PHONES.

Phones only needed to exist long enough for Internet to surpass dial up modems.

Eamon

I just finished The Wizard of Earthsea, not so awesome, but about as good as, say, quality tv.

There is a quote in it, that "The more a man grows in knowledge and power, the less and less he is free to choose, until eventually, he does only what he must."

I feel I am bound, gifted, weighted, freed, filled and emptied by a gift. A gift, a talent, a disposition, an ability--but I am feeling it more daily. My testimony, before God and man, is that the Spirit of God opened my eyes. I had knowledge, I had ability, I had everything lined up, but something about life seemed small, the world was a puzzle, and I knew not why.

But God has rubbed the dirt of the earth in my eyes, and I see more and more. I see everything, all at once, I see from a wide perspective, I see the world through a submission to the understanding of Wisdom beyond this world. I am not bound, or obligated, or driven, but INSPIRED, FILLED WITH BREATH, to continue.

I learn about old things, keep up on new things, research big ideas, evaluate small ideas, talk to people not to pass time, but to truly understand--not them or the world exclusively, but GOD, entirely. THE God, whose miracles grow infinitely greater while growing infinitely simpler. I do not rest well, because I fear most comfort and worldly success--having more things, and staking my claim to that which my hands had created.

What is required of me, what is to be done, what is the answer? What is asked of me? What can I do? Ultimately, WHO am I? Am I anything, beyond my presence? Am I a person, beyond my station?

My mind works like a filtering system, weeding everything out, meticulously working everything from every angle at once, nonstop, which made me strange and gifted in my former life. But now, I am given a Grace to add, the yeast to my dough, the rain to my garden, and the most distressing thing of all is that I am coming up with answers. No, I don't tell people what I see, what I know, what I feel, what I think, what I forsee or understand. My wife gets all of that which I can possibly verbalize, much of it coming out as nonsense in it's infancy. But there is something that is to be known, and it is beautiful in its simplicity, its timelessness, its place in the world, its meaning, its truth, its importance, and the ability of men to ignore and fight it. I see only 2 real paths in life that are truely right and just--those that either clothe themselves in rags, or commit themselves to a family, and either shout to the masses or whisper to their children, the same message said a thousand thousand ways--GOD IS IMMANENT, THE HOUR OF GOD IS AT HAND, THE END IS NEAR, JESUS LOVES YOU...

Perhaps it is best that nobody read this. But perhaps not. I'll err on the side of sounding like a fool, rather than on the side of isolation. But one day, maybe I'll find out how to reach IT, that thing that's inside of us, inside of you, that you know is there. I know you feel it, your life screams it, I know I feel it, I live in it. The Earth itself crys out for it. I see it in everything, documentaries, mice, "what do you want, Butchie Yost?", drunks, haircuts, glances, sentences, clean clothes, dirty clothes, work, my job, this computer.

I am weary, but I know I can keep on. For any reason.

For now we see as through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.

Eamon

In other news, I'm writing something.

In yet other news, I've decided what would be my ideal lifestyle.

I want to live in a reasonably self-sufficient(just more independent of the machine than 99% of the modern world), intentional community, of people who just love Jesus, love people, with selfless ideals and a passion for pushing things back to their roots. I'd be the gardener/farmer as well as the cook/herbalist. Mae would certainly be suited for handling the small children and teaching the young ones. Well, that's food and childcare right there. Now we need a small amount of other people and we can do this thing. I'm not trying to ignore society, leeching off the protection of a culture diametrically opposite of mine(cough, Amish, cough). I'm looking to live somewhere, anywhere, and show that you can not just fight, but rise above the system, that it can't fight you if you aren't in it. The worst thing you can do to a government or social system of violence and oppression is battle it--it is a hate machine that feeds off strife, debt, suffering, toil and the million profitable ways to commit suicide of the course of a few short decades.

I strive to be unwanted by society. Rather than rebel, public enemy, threat, or terrorist, call me a lunatic, fool, crackpot, madman and not worth the trouble. I want to be so small, that I'm free to live a lifestyle that bleeds love and passion to the point of threatening decent society. I want to be simple, and live life in a direct fashion, and I want people around me who will give and take harsh criticism when anything is done out of any reason but pure love. I have learned quickly that in a marriage, it can be give-and-take, where everything is compromise, or it can be a ceaseless action of expression of one thing--"I love you!". I make the bed, ostensibly to keep it clean, organized, etc(but beds need to breathe and it's just as easy to get into when It's messy)...the real reason is because I know she likes it, and I want her to know I love her enough to go out of my way to arrange a bed. I don't see how this can fail, when your life and every minor action, rooted in love, becomes a testament to your passion and love for all things. Ultimately, it will kill you, because that by which a man lives is that which will kill him.

Where are you, our compatriots?

I have a few days off of work, so I am trying to wring my brain to figure out what to do for a living. I need a new job.

Bank of America is doing a mighty fine job of ruining my life. I wake up feeling guilty for all the shit they put me through, making me feel like a thief for trying to eat breakfast in the morning. No more banks for me. Money is bad enough, fake money is worse. I can't afford to live only making $7.50 an hour. Yeah, $7.50, to pay for the insurance, house, electricity, phone(for the job), car(for the job), work clothes(job), food(survival)--all the stuff that I have to have lest I die of starvation and elements or get tossed in jail. Anyone who thinks how much money you make is "private" or "impolite for conversation" is just promoting a social tenant that allows people like the shareholders and managers of Panera Bread Co to pay me $7.50 an hour...Because my and many, MANY other people's disasterously low payscale is directly affecting our abilities to live a life beyond the indentured sharecropper status we've so cleverly masked.

It's a tough world out there, full of cops, bankers, and assistant managers. It's a strange feeling to root on the crashing lines on every chart in the section of the paper entitled "Money". I'm on the most abused rung of society, and I couldn't think of a more advantageous situation for plebeians like me than an economic depression. If you are getting anything or everything from your parents, trust me when I say that being "free" from them is not remotely worth it, and if it's your choice--don't.

I feel like I'm being chased, hunted, I've got something riding right up behind me, and it's screwing up my dreams at night.

-------------------------------------

A word to the populace about Panera. Ever seen one of those Trolley-Buses? You know, the bus that looks like a trolley, but it's not a cable-car. Panera is to a Burger King what a Trolley-bus is to a regular bus. It looks nice and different, but it's not. They claim to be doing one thing, but they don't care whatsoever. The employees have emphasis on 2 things only: portion restriction and time. Get out whatever is barely "up to spec" and get it out as fast as you possibly can. Food safety is just whatever appeases the inspector, often only when he's there. Customer service is only on a complain-first basis. Speed FAR outweighs quality, employee morale, safety, cleanliness, customer satisfaction, and(oddly enough) even productivity.

As a company, they don't actually care about bread, people, meals, comfort, or any of that nonsense. They care about getting as much money out of YOUR pocket and putting it in THEIR pocket as possible. Having exceeded the requirements for a successful business scenario, the company presses on into profiteering, raising prices(oh yes, the are going up!), keeping wages at a BARE minimum, and purchasing substandard products anytime the consumer isn't looking.

That brings us to the food. Sure, anti-biotic free chicken meat. Fresh strawberries. Low-Fat dressing. They don't bother with the facts that the eggs are from cage-raised hens, with paper-thin, bleached shells and yolks so worthless they couldn't make a chicken if they wanted to. Ever seen canned strawberries? No? BECAUSE THEY TURN INTO SYRUP. They have to be "fresh strawberries, ooh la lah", unlike the canned fruit that's on the rest of the salad. And for health concerns, all of our food is the empty calorie-laden, GM corn and soy based food science marvels america has come to know and purchase. Is our food cost higher than that of a Taco Bueno? Yes. Is it worth paying 8 dollars for a salad? NO NO NO NO NO. I can barely justify eating there with a 65% discount, often because it is the only food I have available to me at the pay THEY ARE PAYING ME. It's a daily--yes, DAILY--occurrence that someone working at a place that sells food is hungry for their whole shift, and not enough money to eat anything.

Please teach yourself to cook. It's one of the best things you can do for your fellow man and yourself in modern America.

-------------------------------------

It's not all bad, I've got a great wife! We used to eat really good, looks like that's gonna end soon. But we still eat pretty well!

And I have a few days off to write and figure out how to get a job I'm not completely ashamed of.

Ciao!

Eamon

AHA!

YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD GET RID OF ME!!!

Ok so I am on my WIFE'S computer!

Let's see...what has happened...
I GOT MARRIED!!

Married life is the bomb. It's not easy, but it's freaking the best decision I've ever made. And we eat like people should. I recently figured out how to make falafel, fry rice, all kinds of stuff! Man, I'm starving!

My job is still Sucktown, USA. I didn't get one at Whole Foods, but I'm currently aggressively pursuing a job at Half-Price Books that I think I can get. Any advice on getting hired/working at Half Price would be appreciated.

We're having Family Dinner on Thursday night here at Chez Burke. I wish our apartment had a name, like BOB Sanford.

I'm really bored as of late. Like, REALLY bored. It's mostly because my job is soul-suckingly dull and I work these bogus shifts where I get there so early, I open the food line, and work through lunch, leave during the slowest time, and come back and close the line--usually I don't have time to leave work, so I wind up being there for 10-14 hours and get paid like 60 bucks to do it. Which is extremely unacceptable. After that, I'm so tired and out of time that I come home and make dinner and try to calm down/cheer up/entertain my wife for like an hour and go to bed, and wake up with no time to spare, wishing I'd slept more.

BORED. I need to apply my brain. And everyone at work has been as useful for good conversation as a mop bucket.

Cameron and I got a bunch of boards for the ramps over in Campus West at First Euless. I hope I can figure my place in all of that, and I hope I have one.

I spent $52 on gas, 15 days ago, and now I'm close to empty and it's payday. I get an 83 hour check(7 overtime). I'm happy my car is so efficient and I have kept myself within certain boundaries. But you gotsta when there isn't a bus to be had!

==========================

So life in Arlington. Everyone here eats too much meat. Nobody likes to think. Everyone's kinda rude to each other. Everyone is VERY self-assured. And the worst, it's the most "churched" place in America. The number one Christian radio station, the Bible Network TV channel, and Megachurches galore are all based here--DFW, TX. Every car has an Icthys, every person as a Crucifix, every family has a church service. But I can guarantee you, without batting an eye, that if 1/100th of the people who claim such a thing, who nod in agreement on Sunday morning, who profess their faith in their choice of radio station LIVED it, this place would NOT look like this. Every business is a chain, every person is out for number one, profit is the gospel and entertainment is God.

I can't tell you how often I've said,"Is that a local business or what?" and someone says,"Yeah, it's real small, family thing. There's only like 15 of them altogether. They just got one in Oklahoma." And for future reference, if you live in Arlington, Plano is NOT local.

I've also seen a lot of people and businesses who choose to listen to KLTY, the Christian station, but usually just because it's good for business and they don't cuss. I saw a billboard from the station itself that simply said,"94.9, KLTY Family Radio", and I thought,"I bet that's the Christian station. I tuned my dial to it, heard that proto-country pop sound and sure enough, Christian station.

Churches are everywhere here, and they are HUGE, with big signs and fancy buildings. It's more normal here to buy a warehouse or a theater building for your church than to buy a strip-center lease or old restaurant. With that many hundreds of thousands of people going and funding, there shouldn't be any need anywhere in Dallas-Fort Worth, but very VERY few are DOING.

=============================

You know what's strange? I can read the whole newspaper nowadays. I never used to, but now I can read the whole thing, and it's mildly interesting. I even read the MONEY section and laugh and chuckle as I read how the U.S. economy is sinking like a lead brick in the ocean and people are PAINFULLY oblivious to it. I've never known how to deal with the fact that I know about these things before they happen, as I pay attention to the end fallout of situations, and I get told I'm weird or crazy or stupid or too young to understand, and then when it does, those people are baffled and confused like a kid who just realized he'd hurt himself and looks like,"Why did this happen?!" It's just a morbid fascination, honestly--when I was a kid, I'd watch stock shows on PBS and giggle when I saw who's stock went down overnight. I just was entertained by the fact that a whole company is worth more and less all the time, and people monitor international corporations to the penny. Now, I can only look for who's stock DIDN'T fall overnight. Pair that with inflation, job loss, oil prices, lack of education, and a heady, rapid decline in values of Right and Wrong and you've got a country that, socioeconomically, looks like a wounded animal on a riverbank.

=============================

Get Twitter. Because we love you, and care about your personal life.

Eamon

One day, I'll remember that people must learn things for themselves, it only boggles me that everyone insists on learning the hard way.

You'll see what I'm saying one day, but man is it going to hurt. I'm just sorry you can't listen to me. I suppose it's good lessons for when I have to raise kids. But it makes me feel pretty terrible knowing that no matter what I say, those who need to hear will not and can not listen, and then I will be treated like crap, made the object of their preconceived judgments. It's hard to stay someone's friend when they don't treat you like a friend and then act like YOU'RE an asshole. Daniel, I wish you would stop hating on God, because those who hate God ALWAYS take it out on those who live for Him.

Meanwhile, I have a big day today! I just gotta make sure I catch a bus to Rockport!

Eamon

I just spent the day hanging out with my wife-to-be and driving her to work. I could do this.

I really wanna work for Whole Foods. I hear they are good to their employees, and it's like a block from my house.

Still gotta call Summer Brook and light a fire under them about our apartment. Kinda unsettling moving into a place I've never seen. But no matter what, it will be home.

I heard the Thailand team is getting crazy attention from the two hawt guys(Kyler and Todd), and the two cute kids(JC and Rayanne). I wish I could be there with them, but I'm busy here, resting before some more work toward having a home and a family. I feel like I'm really building something.

About to go eat some Bueno and play Mario!

Eamon

Work.

My day off!

So I'd like to address Daniel's post, and comment on a sentiment I hear EVERYDAY from my coworkers.

You're 20. You're flat broke. You work for someone who makes unreal amounts of cash, straight to the pocket, and does little to nothing. I work for people who talk like drugged out psychics about the kinds of BOWLS we use, and don't know JACK CRAP about how you manage to swap out 185 degree soup in 1foot by 1foot space without getting(or giving) second degree burns. They discuss funny emails and office politics, and you sweat. You spend every dime you make on rent and electric and bills, and there's none left over for insurance on your car--and insurance for yourself? Forget it! That's not fair! Why's he/she get that when I have this? They didn't go to college, or maybe they did and you did too! It's cruel, and they hate you and they want to keep you down, right?

No, it's called work. You bust ass, you keep a roof over your head. It's not that bad, and you don't have to be upset because it's hard, or some kid's ball is bigger than yours.

Besides, I find it ironic that we in this country whine about working where we have to wash dishes, mop floors, and dig holes, when we drive our cars home to shower freely and change into clean clothes, and eat food stockpiled in our kitchens, and watch tv or do drugs, because we live without fear for our lives. We bitch because there isn't enough time in our days between work and our drugs and our drinking and our hobbies and all the sleep we decide to have to find the guy who hands out the meaning of our lives. We decide our blessings are curses, and damn ourselves to disappointment or despair.

But remember, anything you have is just the OVERCLASS trying to keep you satiated by throwing you a bone--don't take that shit! Bite the hand that feeds you, starve yourself when you are offered food, and hold yourself hostage to a world that can survive without you--it's not like there are people you mean the world to! Let's never be happy with what we have, let's be discontent.

There's no solution offered in the idea that "THE UPPER CLASS IS KEEPING ME IN THE LOWER CLASS WHERE LIFE SUCKS". Besides, that is to say that being upper class is great, and the only difference is how much money the two have. I don't care--upper, lower, it's not about how much money you have. You can be just as miserable if you have everything.

Look at America--we DID have everything, and now we ARE miserable. Suicide, Infant Mortality, Drug Use, Family Violence, Solitude, and Faithlessness. You don't have to fight for OR against the material world, you either choose to live in it, or not. But if you are fighting for or against it, you make it stronger.

I wonder if it's something everybody must go through, or if it's something that only some people manage--but I am deeply hoping that everyone will rise above all this crap and just eat, drink, be happy, enjoy the work of your hands, put all of your efforts into whatever you find your hands doing, and be grateful for every day, find your passions, love someone, and don't act like you won't one day get old and die. And I didn't hear that from some "underclass" being "held down", I actually read it from King Solomon, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the history of our race.

Just take Arnold Schwarzenegger's advice--STOP WHINING.

Eamon

RELATED NOTE: I think sometime between ages 16 and 22, everyone should be required to go to a nursing home or just some old guys' house and hang out with them on a regular basis. Because MOST of what I hear from people my age sounds like they don't understand that
1. You will grow out of it. Whatever it is, you will likely grow out of it.
2. Your life will get hard, but that doesn't make it not worth living.
3. Being able to bend over to pick up a penny is a talent you won't have for long.
4. Your life goes by very fast unless you are really present for every moment.
5. Living only for yourself makes you miserable in the end, when you just might find yourself alone.

Exhausted.

Working a ton, like today's 13 hour shift after an 8 hour drive after the same 8 hour drive, on 7 hours of sleep for the past 3 days.

I can't WAIT to be married. I picked the right lady. She's gonna be a good wife, a good partner, and an amazing mother. I hope we can work out whatever is keeping us from holding each other in check like we know we should, but I can tell we are getting there. I am very happy!

I'm starving. I have no more money. I ate a big meal for lunch today, and was still hungry, and I'm just all-around hungry.

I'm beginning to see that the greatest of problems for people, the reason people succeed and suffer, the reason people don't know why their hard work isn't paying off, the reason people give up is because of our bodily self-preservation. It's selfishness, because it is to say that you would, come the choice, choose your own physical life over anything else. God demands we give, and give, and give, until we have nothing left to give, and then give more, and He will fill us up. It isn't a leap of faith until you see the risk, and it isn't really selfless love until it hurts, at least once. We aren't called to take rest, we are called to continue, and we will be GIVEN rest.

My days are hard work, and I'm tired, and stuff is difficult for me, financially and logistically. But I feel hugely that I have forgotten that all of what I'm doing is temporary, for me to get to the end of this little journey so I can get back to work! I gotta put my feet down, get to where I'm not needlessly abusing myself, and start an amazing marriage for the sake of our future children, and never forget that I don't get to retire, keep everything for myself, pamper myself, and live without thought of the latter end--of the my life, my money, my actions, my thoughts.

I'm so stoked to be Wes' prayer partner. I needed a job like that.

Eamon

Man I never post anymore. There's not a lot to post about, really.

So the other day, it was raining and my windows started fogging pretty bad. I almost got in a wreck because of it. I was so frustrated, and I tried to turn on the defroster and everything, but it wasn't working. I thought it was pretty bad, and the rain and fog outside wasn't making anything easier.

Eventually, I just reached out and wiped the window off with my hand. I was taught never to do that because it streaks the window and leaves grease on it. But you know what? I CAN SEE THROUGH GREASE, BUT NOT CONDENSATION. Also, it wasn't foggy, it was impressively high visibility outside, I must've looked like a wierdo with frosted windows driving around cutting people off. I can't believe how dangerously impractical I had been my whole life about this.

It's funny how the same thing happens with our ability to see and steer in our spiritual lives. We get really busy getting to where we're going, hoping the difficulty will stop if we get there fast enough or wait it out, but really, we just need to take it back to formula and wipe the windows off.

Get a twitter, they are way better than you think they are.

Eamon