So, this past Sunday, I took the day off from working/directing tech at the church. Even longer than my once legendary record of running the video switcher the most consecutive times in a row, was my record for not missing/working Sundays in a row.

My last "break" was for a weekend back in March 2008. That's right... over a year ago. That was back when I had pretty much just started this blog. And, if you recall, when I came back, I had found out that the lighting system had pretty much blown up, and it was the week before Easter, and it was a stressful time of my life.

I more or less vowed that it was not worth the time and effort to go on vacation. Every time I left, it was a lot of work in advance and a lot of work upon returning just to even leave in the first place. So, I just stayed in town every weekend (or returned late Saturday night) to be back at Southside for Sunday morning to direct tech.

I suppose it should also be a convincing factoid when I tell people that I don't really get sick... that I was able to make it to church every Sunday so early in the morning for like 60 weeks in a row. I didn't miss a single week.

Matt told me that after the Easter season was over, he wanted me to take a Sunday off. So, I started working toward taking this past Sunday off from working. I worked all week on video spots and documentation and checking/double-checking to make sure everyone was scheduled to be there and that I had pretty much everything ready to go before Sunday morning. I like having everything ready-to-go before Sunday morning anyway, but there have been a good number of Sundays where I just showed up and figured it out as I went along, because I knew it wouldn't be a problem.

Even though it was a lot of work, I really enjoyed my Sunday off. For once, I actually slept on Saturday night. I woke up at 9AM Sunday morning without a single missed call or text message. (Several weeks ago, I started putting my cell phone in another room during the night so that I would not be tempted to wake up and check emails, or answer it while I was sleeping. It helps a lot.)

I got up after sleeping in, got dressed, ate some breakfast, and then went to a service at Brookwood Church. It was great. The nice thing is that it's like a mile from my house... a lot quicker drive than going to Southside. Not that anyone should pick one church over another just because it's close to your house.

I walked in, acted like a regular attender as much as possible, and sat in the middle of a row of chairs smack in the middle of the room. My friend Tory joined me so I wasn't completely by myself. I had never been to a service there, but I liked it. It was different than Southside, but there were several production aspects that I enjoyed (and similarly was disappointed at). It was a nice change of pace.

The main reason I didn't attend a service at Southside on my day off was that, having not been on a break for so long, I wasn't sure that I could sit in a service and not overly critique my team or jump up from my seat the moment something went wrong.

So, after the service was over at Brookwood, I walked around their facility for a while (I had not been there before) and then headed over to Southside to catch the end of the third service. I joined the team in the tech booth and hung out with a few of those guys for a while.

Overall, it was a good morning. I've been working like crazy since Sunday trying to stay caught up on projects though. I've fallen into the "was this worth it" frame of mind a few times already today, but I know the time off was worth it. I was able to relax and refresh and refocus. I've heard many comments already from people saying, "I didn't even know you were gone on Sunday", which I am assuming means, "You trained the team so well to operate without you" instead of, "We never notice if you're there or not." I suppose the latter isn't that bad either, since I'm all about being invisible. Like a ninja.

So, other than that, I've been crazy busy. Working long hours and getting things done. I'd write more about it... but, would you really read it?

Later,

Joe

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You know, when I started this blog, I had grand expectations. I wanted to have a large number of people following me daily, reading all of my words, and then sharing their comments on my grand and fascinating life.

For some reason (even though I am pretty awesome), that never happened. Perhaps my sheer verbosity was so encumbering that people simply could not participate in a way that ameliorated the conversation or in a way that would not seem completely extraneous.

Yeah, I was just throwing out some old vocab words I remembered from school. They all fit, but it doesn't really mean anything.

Anyway. Nobody ever really commented. And I think I know why. I often shared some of my opinions, but mostly, I stuck to being chronological. I didn't share tons of insight into what I was thinking or learning. Just what I was doing. Ok, well, I'd also argue that I shared a lot of my thoughts through the sarcasm and jokes and humor, but still. We all know you skipped over the middle parts of my writing anyway. And I know a few people searched for their names and only read those parts. I know. I know.

I read a lot of blogs. I comment on a lot of them. For a while, I did this so that they'd also comment on my blog. This was a tactic I learned from the days of having "guestbooks" on websites. Yeah... If you had a website in 1996, you know what I'm talking about. That tactic doesn't really apply anymore. Most people simply want to read anonymously and if they do want to share a comment, it's either in a discussion-type forum or they only want to share when there is something to contribute to.

And, after all, let's think about that. Who wants to contribute when all I ever wrote about is what I did during the day? "Uh, yeah, Joe, I agree... you work a lot... thanks for reminding us...".

I had a conversation last weekend about this with my friend Catie. She recently started a blog. Reading how she expressed thoughts and ideas and concepts immediately put me back in my mindset of fear that stopped me from blogging when I first started this whole thing back in 2005. (For those that have been following the story... you know about that, for those that haven't, well, it was called, "A blog of how your life COULD be", and it was a pretty awesome blog). I used to write my opinions on that blog and thought nothing of it. However, whenever my writing caused conflict, my first tendency was to either delete the offending text, or to completely ignore that person that was offended by my writing. Because, let's be honest, either what I wrote they misinterpreted, or, what I wrote they misinterpreted, right?

I have always hated conflict. I'm a pretty peaceful person, and somewhere along the way, I just assumed that I'd never be capable of writing something that would offend somebody else. As I kept that old blog, I finally decided that I just didn't have a good handle on my emotions (or, at least, expressing them online). I wasn't comfortable with putting my thoughts and expressions out there for people to read and possibly criticize/discuss.

I think that caused me, to a degree, to want to avoid any real deep expression of opinion on this blog. I did it from time to time, but I always forced myself to keep the mindset of, "Would I take this and go read it to every single person I know or might know and not offend them?" That can make for some pretty boring reading. So, I stuck to the chronological thing. It worked.

And the thing is, I like the chronological style of writing. Over time, I started to feel pressure from the people following me ("reading often or daily"), to fully inform them of my days and actions, for the sake of making the story that much more complete. I have often felt like if I could devote all day to writing, that I would and easily could. My mind is so active that it's easy for me to sit and write out everything I've done in the last day, week, or month. I suppose that's a good thing and a bad thing. I still don't know why I'm so good with dates.

I think people are looking for more than chronological writing. And a side of me wants to contribute in that way, revealing more of my thoughts. It's a style of writing I've always enjoyed, and it will be new and refreshing challenge for me to consider how that might look.

So what does that mean? I don't know. As much as I would enjoy returning to a daily posting habit of writing about my days, I don't think it's for the best. I have found a certain freedom that I have come to enjoy about not having to write about every little thing. It has nothing to do with not wanting accountability, but rather, sometimes I just didn't have the energy to fully articulate how I felt about a particular part of my day. And I hated doing anything half-heartedly.

I have no immediate plans to disable this blog. However, at this time in my life, I want to focus on a different style of writing, and this doesn't suit it.

Now, feel free to comment on THAT... or not.

Later,

Joe

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I really miss writing out my thoughts every day. I keep telling people I am enjoying my break, but it's like a part of my life and daily routine are just plain gone.

I'll be back at some point.

Just saying.

Later,

Joe

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