Biltmore

I went to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC yesterday and had a wonderful time with Syd.  Some pictures from that event are here.  It was pretty amazing.  I went when I was in the fourth grade, and nothing seems any smaller even though I have more than doubled in size since then.  Crazy.

After touring around and having fun with animals and a wine tasting, we went to a tapas bar.  The food was interesting.  Some was really, really good.  Other parts were marginal to gross.  I guess that is what you get when you try stuff from other countries.  We had a 1/2 bottle of Spanish wine (Muga Roija, 2003) that was amazing.  I think I will try to find some more of that in the near future.

Prove it.

Monday night right before I went camping, which was amazing, I was hit with some wisdom.

I was involved in a pretty intense conversation on Sunday and was feeling kind of burdened/heavy as a result felt like some sort of resolution needed to occur.  I was not going to be able to have a follow-up conversation, because of camping and another brief prior engagement, until Thursday night (tonight).  While I was supposed to be listening to a volunteer vision casting meeting, I was hit with the thought,  “If it is really important, prove it.  Let your actions confirm your recognition of importance so that later your words will have substance.”

If I just say that something matters to me right now and don’t act on it, then my word will be as good as any other statement that I have made to a person.  If I have proven myself trustworthy in certain statements, I lend credit to all of my statements.  If, however, I only speak of concern and never follow through with the appropriate actions (or worse, act contrary to them), I will then negate not only the previous related statements, but potentially others as well.

The way I see it, integrity if far too important to leave until tomorrow.  Integrity is built in the current choices that lead to actions that confirm what I said yesterday and what I will say tomorrow.

Time to change

I have had the opportunity and the pleasure of having a couple of weeks built into the time between when I left my job at NewSpring and the time when I will start working in Greenville.  This has been a great time to think, clean and ready myself for a new mindset and new task order with the new job.

I think it would have been foolish to try and rush into a new job without letting myself unwind and reset from the previous job stresses and mindsets.  I believe that not taking a break is a good way of saying “I’m not human and I don’t have to live by the rules that God has set up for creation.”  God set up a system of taking a break after completing a huge task.  I would say that a career change would be completing a huge task.  It is more than just on week or month or year long project, but a massive amount of time placing efforts and attention to one goal.  When that time ends, I think it is a good idea to break to give not only my mind a rest, but to allow it to adjust to new policies, procedures and pressures.

This new job seems like it is going to afford me the chance to explore some elements of myself that have been either held back or uncharted to date.  I am about as excited about this as any job I have had, with the exception of when I found out I was going to be scooping ice cream for Ben and Jerry’s.  That turned out to be not quite as exciting once I got into it.  I am definitely looking forward to full time work with benefits.

Camping Again

My brother is graduating from Clemson University, my alma mater, this weekend.  Before he goes on in life he and a couple of other guys and I are going to hang out in the woods for fun.  Should be a great way to spend a couple of days.  I wish I had spent a little more time hanging out with him when he was so close during college.  That is the kind of think you realize only on the brink of missed opportunity.