Recent Life Synopsis

OK, if you are back for a second round of redheadedness then you are at least somewhat interested in my life, so I will tell you.

School: I went to college at St. Olaf from 1998-2002 and graduated with the super-nerdy degree of Classics and Ancient-Studies. I found that the sciences were not as appealing as they were once and also found a love for the ancient languages. It also helps that Olaf has one of the best, if not the best, Classics departments in the country. This degree has helped me as I am now in the midst of my second year at seminary. I take classes for 4 hours every Monday night and will probably finish in 2075....actually more like 2009 but it sure feels like it is going to be 70 years from now. After completing a Masters of Divnity I think at this point I'd like to either pastor/lead a church or teach at the college level. Consequently a PHD may be in order, but I may wait for that until my wife is making enough money to support me :). That brings me to my next point....

Love Life: Kate, my beautiful wife, soon to be the greatest audiologist in the world! Kate and I married amid an ice storm on January 1st, 2005 after being together for more than 6 years. She is a grad student at the U of M in audiology and will graduate about 6 months before me. She also holds time some part time work through the great company of ProStaff. Kate certainly compliments me and also lovingly puts up with my crap. We live at the U of M married student housing and enjoy our Minneapolis location, although we are so close to both cities we can never really choose which one we like best.


Work: After college I start to climb the ladder at a local bookstore chain in the Twins Cities. I met great people and still have friendships there, but after a manager position opened up and I was denied it I searched and found a great job: working in insurance! I know, not only am I more boring now, but I'm also more of a nerd. Actually the office is awesome, working with some people that I graduated college with as well as others. I'm person that you call up to complain about your rates to or explain what "P.I.P" stands for. I'm also the person who tells you, "What? you got a teenage boy turning 16 and getting his license? Enjoy 5 long years of super high rates, SUCKER!" Actually Farmers Insurance is a great company and does offer more discounts than any other company! I am the office manager and hold down the fort while my boss takes frequent trips to his home in Arizona. It's cool though, he deserves it after a long life of building one of the largest Farmers agencies in the country. Anybody need life insurance?

Other Stuff: For fun I enjoy lots of stuff, mostly getting together with friends. I also value my down time, it keeps me going through the rest of my week. During that time I like watching the Simpsons, playing baseball, or checking scores. Kate and I also found that we love to cook together so I enjoy making creations in the kitchen, with a pretty high success rate. Soon enough I will take on Mario Betalli on Iron Chef and as long as the ingredient is garlic I am sure to win!

Hope this satisfies your desire to know more about what is going on with me. I am also very interested in what is going on with you, so if you have a minute shoot me an email and let me know. Until we meet again......

Greetings!

Well you are here because part of you cares about me. C'mon, admit it. You wouldn't be here if you weren't just a tad curious about what I am doing, saying, or thinking these days.

For those of you with whom I have not spoken since college, high school, or even before let me say that I am sorry for the severe lack of communication but if you have gotten here by way of email invite (or forwarded email invite) then I am glad you are here and look forward to hopefully communicating with you more personally starting.........now

Please look for the next post "Recent Life Synopsis" for what I am up to these days. This will be showing up in a couple of days from now. Such a post is meant to clear the air so that if we are ever to hang out we won't have to go through the akward "So what are you doing these days?" Ya know, what you have to repeat a billion times during graduations, weddings, and family gatherings. I always felt I should just wear a sign to those events that had my name, where I lived, why I lived there, if I was in school, what I was studying, where I worked, and why I was not a baseball player yet. The "Recent Life Synopsis" post is meant to be that sign. This post is a welcome and summary of what is to come.

So, why do I like these three things?












Well, if you don't know Him, I would recommend trying to do so once in a while. When I was an earlier teenager Jesus became extrememly important to me after I realized that His death is the only thing sufficient to wipe my sins away and that He defines life's most true and pure forms of hapiness and fulfillment. I'm certainly far from perfect and screw up everyday. Unfortunately Jesus is too quickly equated with one bad experience at church, one jerk on TV or in your life who claimed they loved Him, or a number of bad representations of Him. But the true person of Christ, the Lamb of God, truly dismantles all those impressions and hopefully my life will reflect that along with His love and grace for all people.

Baseball is the just about the coolest thing ever. A true team endeavour, deep with endless statistics, and the best game dynamics of any sport. Oh I know there are haters out there, and that is cool with me, I don't expect everyone to enjoy it. But I've found baseball games to be the most entertaining events to attend or to watch on TV and I enjoy it all year round. And being from Minnesota I love my Twins. Thankfully my fantastic wife puts up with this obession.

Coming in a close second to just about the coolest thing ever is a nice cold frosty brew. I enjoy such things because they bring people together. It's about community, life together, friendship, commitment, laughing and fun. Over a frosty brew people spill their feelings, their joys, their souls. Over a bottle of wine a group of people catch up on days gone by. Of course beer is not the only catalyst for such things and here it is really a symbol. Please don't mistake my enjoying a beer with enjoying drunkenness. These things are best in moderation for sure. If I went out with you to enjoy a Leinie's I would care infinitely more about you than what is in my glass.

So, sorry this post is mammoth....it's my first blog post ever.....so that means that it can only get better from here on out. I plan to share tons of funny stories and commentaries on life, let you know what I think about the current state of the Twins, share what I learn in class and in life, and generally just blab away. I hope that you enjoy it.