my senior year in high school i decided i wanted to be a programmer. in my turbo pascal class, we were given assignments to program, and I enjoyed doing them to see the final product work. in college, i began my career majoring in CSCI with a concentration in IS...basically, programming for business. There was another concentration that had more math and science, but I opted to take the road which would give me less work. with this major, we began programming in the first semester and I quickly found that those assignments in high school were fun because i didn't really have to program...the teacher gave us the code and helped us put it together or we worked in groups.

soon after my first year, a new concentration was in the works and would be available soon...the IT concentration included a wide range of classes...programming, web design, multimedia, databases, etc...this was exactly what I was looking for and i could use classes that i have already taken as credit. i talked with my advisor and he saw my grades and told me that he didn't think i should go that route...that if i was trying to find an easy way out, that this would not be it...I never said i wanted an "easy way", but that I wanted to do something that I actually wanted to do...he finally signed the appropriate papers and I was on my way.

while all of this was going on, i was becoming a good guitar player and being pushed into a worship leadership role that I didn't think i wanted. the worship coordinator at the Baptist Student Union at the time, heard me play and told me that I should lead worship at one of the services. i gave in and played a few songs...i don't remember how it went, but i know that from that point on, i was never the same. i played in a couple of different bands before a friend and I formed Patchwork. We led worship, we played shows all over the place...we even recorded 2 albums! besides Patchwork, i also led a worship band that had a weekly gig at the BSU.

I was at a crossroads...a career in music or in computers. long story short, i picked computers because i couldn't see spending all of that money on school to be in band...seems like a waste. plus, i knew that if i was supposed to be in music that God would make a way for me to do both in some capacity. i knew that God had obviously given me a gift to do both things. i guess another part of me was just scared to give up everything to pursue a music career in an industry that is hard to get into. does that mean i have less faith? no, i don't think so. i think we have to be realistic. here's the part i didn't tell you...don't tell anyone i told you this...I'm not that good of a guitar player. I can play rhythm pretty well and do what I do really well. That's about it. Yes, i believe God can give us the gifts to do things, but maybe my faith isn't strong enough for that...i don't know...maybe i didn't have the drive or desire to make that my career.

often i think about being on the stage...i see concerts and wish it was me. we never toured the nation, so maybe i wouldn't like all the travel and the lack of consistency. in some capacity i would love to be on a stage OR be involved in music.

here's my ideal job that i will have someday either part time or full time. at a church as a multimedia guy/computer guy/musician. i'm at a place right now that i couldn't dream of leaving my job...we're in the middle of several projects and i have knowledge that others in my company don't. i'll have to finish the projects and document all i know..oh and hire someone who can take my place.

sorry for the long post...if you've made it this far, you know a little more about me and what makes me tic.

does anyone find that seeing bcc in MS Outlook on someone's screen offensive?? I was helping a user with her email. she said that she didn't want others to see the email addresses of the other people on a list when sending a mass email. I turned on the bcc field so that it would appear on the New Message screen. she quickly said, "how do you turn that off, i don't want that on my screen!" I asked, "why? do you find it offensive?" she said, "no, I just don't want it on my screen...if someone walks up behind me while I am typing an email and sees that on my screen, they might find it offensive." she uses another method of putting addresses in the bcc, so she uses it, but she just doesn't want people to know that she uses it.

who cares if you use bcc?? i guess one purpose of the bcc is to secretly email a copy of an email to another person without letting one person know about it. like if you wanted to email an employee about a subject that you wanted your boss to know about, but you don't want that person to know about it. so, i suppose people may accuse you of being secretive and sneaky when you have that option...

i find it offensive when other people look over my shoulder when i am typing an email, so it's none of their business whether or not i use bcc.

man, i could go on and on about the kind of stuff i encounter here...sometimes i have to get out the duct tape to repair my head after it explodes. maybe that should be the theme of my blog.

this is my final attempt at beginning a blog. i have tried Xanga and enjoyed it for a while until i followed the crowd over to Myspace land. I even tried making my own wordpress page on my domain...but it was too much work...I'd like to have something separate that doesn't have a bunch of junk all over it like Myspace does...i'm sure there is weird stuff on Blogger, but we'll give it a go...