Vital Friends

I’ve just finished reading Tom Rath’s Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without. I have not read his prior bestselling “How Full is Your Bucket?”, but I found Vital Friends to be a remarkably informative book.

Yet Another Excuse NOT to Get Married

I was recently informed about a new website called Dodgeball that, unbelievably to me, has been purchased by Google. Now, in theory, anything that Google does is typically genius or at least smart. This, however, was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Which means, of course, that it necessarily involves cell phones. Almost every “cool” website that uses any kind of interfacing with cell phones, is typically, about as uncool and geeky as I can imagine.

Internet to Blame for Lack of Close Friends?

Techdirt pointed out that, according to Network World, the internet is partly to blame for our lack of close friends these days. It is an interesting study that was done that shows that although people might have hundreds of friends on social networks like MySpace and Friendster, they have fewer close friends then ever.

Close friends are defined as someone who you can talk about “important matters”. I suppose that varies from person to person, but it still rings true to me that people are definitely more scatter-brained and less-focused than I can ever remember.

Separating Contacts by New Age and Dark Ages

One interesting thing I did during my recent switch from Outlook 2003 to Thunderbird was to also go through all my email contacts. Anyone who had never sent me an email or replied to an email of mine in the past few years, or who did so traditionally late (like months later), I deleted their email address and made a separate address book for them called “Phone Only”. I have no idea what is with these people. They either hate me and have no spine to say so, or maybe they get an email address and have no clue how to use it. I’m not talking about people with wrong email addresses or mailbox full folks. Some of them actually used to be pretty good friends.

Gifts for Obadiah

Just wanted to post this real quick as a sort of public thank you while I was thinking about it. I’m sure there are many other major thank you’s, but wanted to make these known.

Some thoughts on grief

I’m sort of exhausted again after another day of bizarre sleep patterns. My mother-in-law, who has experienced the death of her first child as a stillborn, and the death of her husband about ten years ago, told me today that “grief is exhausting”. I couldn’t agree more. I’m constantly exhausted, feeling like doing nothing, but yet, I can’t sleep. The night before Obadiah’s funeral, I only got two hours of sleep. I later fell asleep for about 90 minutes - just out of sheer exhaustion at about 4 in the afternoon. You’d think I’d come home and crash. No. I only got about four hours of sleep last night.

Obadiah Malachi

Yesterday, I buried my son Obadiah Malachi. He was stillborn on May 21. It has been the most heart-wrenching experience of my life. I feel very much like writing and writing and just getting it all out, yet at the same time feel like doing nothing. But I have to write and here seems as appropriate as anywhere else. I really never handwrite anything anyway, so a journal wouldn’t work for me. My thoughts always come faster than I can write, but I type pretty fast so it is easier to keep up with myself.

Long Lost Friends

Sort of a “where are they now?”, this is a list of some friends that I once had - some good friends, some just acquaintances, that I’d like to hear from. I made a token effort to Google them but didn’t find much. Yes, of course, if I had the time, I could probably hunt them down like rabbits! But I always hate that first question, “How in the world did you ever find me?” and then, if I tell them truth, it is always a little scary to them since they realize that my mind is perhaps more cunning than most of the people on the FBI’s Most Wanted. Always a tough hurdle to overcome when you first get back in touch with someone - ha ha. So, I figured, I’m busy anyway, so I’ll just post this and see if anyone contacts me over the next year or so. Another friend of mine did this on his blog and I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

Types of Friends

We’ve learned the hard way that the two main types of people are loyal and non-loyal. It can be hard to know up front which type of person someone is, so I’m working to devise a series of tests to be posted here later.

Within the loyal camp, there are two main types: Obsessively Loyal (The Stalker), and Just Plain Loyal (The Faithful Friend). The Stalker is obsessed with you as a person, may mention you as a “close friend” when you are not, may find ways to insert him or herself into every aspect of your life, even though you’ve made very little overture to that person, if at all, other than to be pleasant or polite. The Stalker may place the importance of “being with you” over and above normal daily functions like showering, or paying bills on time.

Letter to a Christian friend missing from Church

I’m writing to express my concern over your absence at church. Please understand that I am writing out of love and concern for you and your family. I also want you to know that I am writing this on my own accord. It is only my idea, and I have not been encouraged or requested to do so by any other persons.

I don’t anticipate this letter will be long, for if there is any key point, it is that I just wanted you to know that I know you have been missing and that you will now know I know you are missing and you will know I am concerned. Largely, I hope that to be sufficient reason for you to return to church, that is, the concern of a fellow believer, and if that was all that needed to be said, my first sentence accomplished that.

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