Sep 9, 2009

a day in the life of me: 09.09.09


In the last nine minutes of 09.09.09, here is a quick list (if I can type it that fast) of nine things I did today:
  1. Woke up to my youngest son Daniel who whispered, "Daaaaddy... today's my first day of kindergarten."
  2. Hung out with my oldest son Joshua and watched him do third grade work self-sufficiently.
  3. Listened to a leadership conference in varying bites throughout the day - took some awesome notes.
  4. Started out working on my message for Sunday and ended up writing a bold challenge to my church family... that we would pony up on the important stuff and not play games with each other (which we generally don't, so hopefully it was well received).
  5. Celebrated the "first day of kindergarten" at Dairy Queen with the family.
  6. Worked on getting to know some new people to our church - via phone and email.
  7. Went with a buddy from Connection to pick up an item my wife found on Craig's list. It was an iron sharpening iron kind of time.
  8. Helped coach Daniel's soccer... I took a faith step forward and invited the head coach out to lunch tomorrow.
  9. Had a good chat with one of my neighbors about a rock band he's starting and has invited me to be a part of.
What are nine things you did today? (It's okay if you respond to this later)

2 comments:

Brodie said...

Before I get into my list, I need to mention a couple things. First, your #1 is one of the cutest things I've read in weeks. Awesome. #7 remains one of my favorite all-time truisms.

1) Woke up in a ridiculous amount of pain (worked out for the first time in years on Tuesday and chose to do it at a CrossFit box . . . great workout, but holy poop sore) but, sticking to my usual habit of avoiding drugs (I figure that pain is built into the body for a reason. May as well experience it and try to learn a lesson . . . unless morphine is called for), avoided the ibuprofen and took 15 minutes to get out of bed and make breakfast.

2) Took a 25 minute shower, most of it spent slumped against the wall.

3) Was running late for Appellate Writing (gee, I wonder why?), so drove my car for the first time in 9 days. Still drove home immediately after my 10 o'clock and rode my bike back (painful).

4) Had a three hour break, so, while making lunch, I opened OmniFocus (sort of a to-do list program. Google GTD if you're really interested in the system it's based on) and managed to accomplish quite a few things on the "miscellaneous" tab—the ones without due dates. Only accomplished one thing that has a due date.

5) Went to International Law and started a new column in my note-taking program—trying to figure out how my prof could be so adamant about the importance of sovereignty yet so willing to suggest that, when it's convenient for the US, the sovereignty of countries other than ours doesn't matter (and how the guy can be on the board of directors for the US Institute of Peace (a position requiring Senate confirmation) while also supporting invading Iraq).

6) Re-opened OmniFocus and was super disappointed to realize that 90% of my non-school related to-do items with due dates have to be done between 9 and 5—I got out of class at 5:15.

7) Discovered that Esurance makes it ridiculously easy to do everything online except canceling your policy (they're $200 more expensive than Progressive for me). Turns out it's also nearly impossible to get anyone on the phone with them when you want to cancel your policy (but easy to get someone for other things. They won't cancel the policy, though, they just forward you to the people who do—who remain impossible to get on the phone).

8) Went to Scholarly Writing (at 8PM, oddly enough). Upside, writing the journal article required for the course should be easier than I thought. Downside, most of its deadlines line up with Appellate Writing deadlines.

9) Rode my bike back home and talked with my roommate about the finer points of healthcare policy. He's German (flew into the country four weeks ago to start a Ph.D in Economics at Georgetown) and I really appreciate the perspective he brings. Ultimately agreed that one of the biggest issues is that, before getting into this entire debate, nobody bothered to clarify (via resolution or any other means) whether healthcare is a responsibility of the government at all. It wouldn't work in our system, but we'd love to see Congress vote on a binding resolution—if it passes, then that part of the debate is over and we move on from there. If it fails, then the debate is completely over, and Congress moves on to one of the many, many other things on its already packed agenda.

tonymyles said...

Wow, dude... you use bigger words than I do. Except for "holy poop sore."

:)

Thanks for sharing that, actually - a great glimpse into another person's day gives your own day some perspective. Sounds like you're making intentional investments into learning and living life engaged versus passively. Awesome stuff.