finite speck

We've been having internet issues at our office over the last few days. When it happens a lot of productivity goes down because we have become so reliant upon the internet. Everything is connected to it. It got me thinking what if the internet all of sudden became closed? What I mean is only certain people could access it. Somehow privileged people. With the reliance that we now have on the internet for many things... shopping, bills, orders, information, entertainment, communication, etc. I could see this making life for those not given access extremely difficult. But, I could also see something like this happening at some point. It's a little scary to start thinking about. This also spurred another thought just for myself and my family. Maybe we have an internet free night once a week just because. To maybe help break us of our thinking that we need to have access to the internet all the time. When the internet goes down. Because sometimes it does. What do you do?

My son is 3 and at certain times in the day a switch gets flipped and he just decides to talk gibberish. It's usually not for very long... sometimes it's around bedtime, but he makes absolutely no sense. And you can try to get him to talk with actual words, but he'll just keep going with his made-up words. My daughter is almost 5 and I don't remember her ever talking gibberish. I've noticed sometimes my son will also start talking nonsense when he's being disciplined. It might be his way of avoiding the conversation perhaps. It's kind of a random post here, but I just didn't want to forget the way my son will just randomly start saying things like, "Sanuch. Sali. Baluch. Wabi." I have no idea what you're saying, but you're a funny kid.

What a good action forgiveness is. Along with that is the ability we have to ask for forgiveness, which I'm thankful for. I experienced forgiveness yesterday with one of my co-workers and it felt so good. To know that even though I screwed up and didn't think in the way that I responded to my co-worker, once I realized what I had done, and asked for forgiveness, he extended it. I went out to lunch with a co-worker of mine yesterday to talk through some challenges we were facing. And I'm so glad I did. We were able to talk through things. We both came to see that we both interpret things differently in our conversations with one another. There are areas where we can both grow. We also both want to really want to work together well. He's also a believer and I know that has helped in us both wanting to work through our challenges and forgive. I think one of the biggest things I've realized through the process is that you can't take back things that you've

5 years ago we had no kids and our closest friends didn't either. Today, we 3 kids each! And last night we all went out to Chick-fil-A for supper. 9 kids and 6 adults. It was great to just get out of the house and our kids were pretty well behaved. But, it's just a lot different than the times we had 5 years ago with no kids. We all have a lot less me-time and a lot more them-time. I'm thankful for the friendships that we've made and that even after all of us having 3 kids we're finding time to get together. It's neat seeing our kids start playing together too.

When's a good time to start a new habit? To start doing something regularly? There may be certain times that make more sense. But, just start. Start small and keep it up regularly. This morning I'm starting to go through a bible study that my wife is going through as well. Over the last year, I've been reading a passage in the morning and that's it. So, I feel challenged to spend more quality time reading the bible and hope to be able to make that happen. I believe I have the time to do it, it's just doing it. So, here's to getting started today and keeping it going.

Well, this has been on my mind for the last day or so because I screwed up again via a text. I've done the same thing via email before as well. "Correcting" someone or giving my opinion brashly via one of these mediums while others are also included on the thread and knowing they were. Right after I sent the text I realized... "Ewe, that's not going to sit well." It was my opinion, we hadn't discussed it and I'm going to need to ask for forgiveness. Top that all off with it was work-related and it's the weekend. Not a good combo. My takeaway from these types of scenarios is to just keep communication open with people. And think about how I would want to be responded to in the situation. Think about my emotions as I'm typing... if they're rising up... it might be a bad thing to be texting or emailing anyway. Make a phone call instead. Don't hide behind words that are typed. I care about those I work with and I believe we all want

The last people have left the conference. Your team won the tournament. The parade just had the last people walk by. Your flying back home from a fantastic vacation. There's a build-up to the event. There's the duration of the event... and then it's all over. There's been a ton of prep. A busy week of our Winter Conference. And now I sit at home the morning after knowing it's all over. Sometimes it's all over is a restful feeling... sometimes you wish it the event would keep going. Like in the example of a vacation. But all things with a build-up, like everything else in this life, come to an end. I look forward to the culmination of the build-up to "it's all over" to when we're with God. Where there is a new heaven and a new earth. When everything is as it should be. The thing with all things in this life is there's always an aspect to the thing we looked forward to that's not as good as we thought it could be. It's good, but

I just got back from the NAMA regional awards tonight and we won first place for unique print advertising and for audiovisual presentation. Awards are a funny thing... it feels good to be recognized by others, but it also doesn't feel like that big of a deal at the same time. Awards don't necessarily make our company more money, that I know of. If we were an ad agency it might, but we're the client (we do a lot of our work in-house). I think part of it that I enjoy is just getting to know other people. Learn what they do. How they do it. Ask them questions. They're in the same industry and they're also being recognized by our "ag club", so they must be doing pretty good work. The other part is just representing the company that I work for. It's an honor to work for Precision Planting and do good solid work for our company. So, I'm thankful to go up and receive an award on behalf of Precision Planting. So, here's to many more awards.

It's possible to be in even more places, but today our company will be present in 11 different locations at the same time giving the same message to over 3,000 farmers! It's the beauty of the simulcast. The ability to stream content from one location to multiple other locations so that you can reach more people without them having to travel the full distance to the main location. It's allowed us to grow our conference 2X from around our max at our main location of about 2,400 attendees to what I hope to be over 6,000 total.

Some mornings writing is really hard to start. This is one of those mornings. Many thoughts are swirling through my head. Do I write about my kids, about work, about the church, about something that happened yesterday? Sometimes you've just gotta start typing. Start hitting some keys. Strum the guitar. And see what comes out. As I sit here I'm just thankful this morning. After the kids went to bed I opened up my work email to take care of a few last-minute things for Winter Conference and I got an email from some newer team members of a video they put together to promote the conference on social media. It looked awesome! And I had to write a quick note back saying I'm so thankful ya'll are on our team. This is just one thing I'm thankful for... a solid team at my work. I'm also thankful for the kids God has given my wife and me.  I'm thankful for our parents both living super close to us. Thankful for the home we are living in. Thankful for an amazing

I think 10 years ago I would have been more concerned about only doing the work, especially with 1 day left before a big event. But, this year I was thinking about some of the people we bring in for our event and how I might serve them a little. One, in particular, is the guy that does our simulcasting. He's a solo guy, doesn't have a team he works with, so when he gets here through his last day he's kind of on his own. So my and wife talked and decided to invite him for dinner with our family last night. Just to give him at least one night over the next 5 nights with someone for dinner. I really enjoyed it. I hope he did... we have 3 little kids. My point. I think I used to not think about people much at all. I still have a long ways to go, but I'm trying to think more about people and serving them alongside working hard and doing good work. So, I may have a busier day today because we hosted someone last night for a couple hours and made a meal, but I'm learni

Yesterday we had a tea party at home for my daughter and invited her great grandparents over for it. It was the highlight of not only her day, but my son's, and my grandparents. It was also something to do with the weather getting colder again. But, I don't know if would have happened if Chick-fil-a hadn't done their Time Shop program where they gave customers the opportunity to write notes of something they'd like to do with family and sent them in the mail to that special someone. So one of mine was a tea party for an hour with my daughter... so yesterday my wife helped make that happen. We all dressed up a little, set out nice mugs, plates, and silverware. We put out fancy napkins. Put some candles on the table. Josie got her hair done. We went and picked up my grandparents. And we had a fun time for an hour... sipping hot chocolate, coffee, and eating brownies. A big thanks to my wife for deciding to do it yesterday and thanks to Chick-fil-a for coming up with a

3 days left until our biggest conference of the year starts. This will be my 8th Winter Conference and there's something that they all have in common. Everything comes together, but it all happens in the last few days. It doesn't seem to matter how much we plan in advance and how many people are involved, we manage to keep tweaking until the day before. And I think that's a good thing. It makes it more stressful perhaps, but I think we also create our best work in this way. By going all the way to the deadline we give everything we're working on the most time possible. So, we still have 3 days left. Things are coming together. Monday will be crazy, but it's going to be a great week! My wife also reminded me last night that things have gotten a little less crazy... I used to spend hours and hours reformatting presentations for presenters. At least one year we decided to use Keynote instead of PowerPoint which meant for most presenters I had to take their PC Pow

I've seen more people tear up, not full-out cry, just watery eyes at my current employer than anywhere else I've worked. But the tears aren't tears of despair, they're tears of passion. It's because we're a group joining arms saying, "We're in this together." It's a group that has joy as we grow. It's a group that does tough stuff. And it's a group that shares things with one another from a place that cares a lot. I'm so thankful to be working where I am currently at Precision Planting. It's the place I've worked the longest, 8 whole years. It's the place I ended up at when I totally gave up and let God take control.

I had a proud parent moment yesterday when my daughter Josie was at the Wednesday night kids program we attend. She saw two girls that she had played with before at a play date but had never been to this kids' program. I don't know if the girls knew many other kids or not, but Josie went up to them and said hi and started playing with them. This may not seem like a big deal, but for our shy 4-year-old, it was. We had prayed with Josie before we left for church last night that she would be a friend to some other kids there and talk to them. So it was neat to see how God used that prayer and answered it last night. When we got home last night she was feeling so good. It might have been her favorite night at the kids' program.

Our baby will be 8 months next week and he still likes getting up multiple times at night. And once he wakes up there's a lot of crying going on until he gets a "snack". I think he's only made it through the night twice since he was born so far. How do we get him to sleep through the night? I kind of forget how long it took with our other two kids. And I'm not even the one getting up with him. We've been trying to let him cry, but you can only listen to a crying baby for so long... it doesn't exactly put you to sleep. One quick Google search says that anywhere between 4 to 12 months is when you can expect your baby to sleep through the night. So I guess we could have another 4 months to go. We (my wife especially) look forward to fewer interruptions to our sleep someday.

We're almost halfway through January and I wonder how people are doing with their resolutions? Are you still on track? Are you giving up? Did you even start? I would put myself in the boat of really not even starting. Where has the first half of this month gone? I could easily blame my inaction on other things, but the reality is I didn't come up with enough of a plan to get going or I made it to hard... one of the two. One area of focus was in deepening relationships. Some others were... Finalize a family mission statement. Regularly workout.  Bible study with my wife. Write a kids' book. Read 6 books. Organize our basement. So far I have read a book already. My goal with this was to read a book every 2 months. I've also made some headway at organizing our basement. We've got a ways to go on this one still, but we can now use our pool table! The workout, bible study, mission statement, and kids' book are going to take regular discipline or the

8 days from now the majority of the work will be done. The conference will start. And it will be what it is at that point. But until then there's a possibility for change. There's the scramble. There's the what-if. There are things that get cut earlier and things that get added later. There's a lot that is already figured out, but there's always some last-minute adds until the end. And that's ok as long as they can be done... and usually, they can be. It's great working at a place where we're not so rigid that nothing can change when maybe it should. Even though it may be more comfortable to say, "We're done." And still have weeks before the event starts... what fun is that? It puts too many constraints on the creative process. Give the full time allotted. Why cramp the creative process with time constraints that don't need to be?

We've been fortunate in that none of our kids have ever thrown up... until last night. We were both sound asleep and my son came into our bed. I think both of us were ready to just put him back in bed until he said, "I threw up in my bed." And then we smelled it and realized what he was saying was true. And it was a lot. Somehow he managed to not get much on his clothes. And he told us, "I didn't throw up on my dinosaurs." very matter of factly. After the whole ordeal last night, my son threw up 3 times. Once all over me in the bathroom. Once in his bed and once on the floor in the family room where we set up a makeshift bed for the rest of the night with me on the couch. It's crazy what you can do if you have to in the middle of the night. I did two loads of laundry. I took a shower. I gave my son a bath. My wife made his bed again. She also made a makeshift bed in the family room. I think I about threw up 3 times last night... but we made it!

Tweaking is good. And when you get to something that is final don't be afraid to tweak a little more. This happened to me this week. I had "finalized" a new logo and another designer I sometimes work with had some good ideas which made the final design better. The challenge was working with my boss to tweak the design yet keep what he liked in the current design. I think we ended up in a good place by the end of the week. But, if I held too close to my "final" design we would have never gotten there. I'm becoming more and more thankful for others that are talented that take ideas, design, and creativity to another level that I wouldn't be able to on my own. Thanks, Tyler.

My wife is a rock star. Most days during the workweek she is home with the kids. We currently have a 4-year-old, 3-year-old and a 7-month-old. And I know it's tough some days. Especially this time of year when you can't get outside as much. Yesterday, at the end of the workday, I got a text saying come home I'm not feeling good at all. And my wife rarely complains about feeling sick... so I knew it was bad. So, I had the kids for the rest of the evening while my wife was in bed. I'm not complaining about it, but I just want to acknowledge that 3 kids under 5 to one adult is really tough. I'm probably a wimp but taking care of food, getting them ready for bed, tucking them in, especially when they're used to mom doing things too makes it challenging. We made it. All the kids went to sleep and didn't get up at all last night... other than our baby (which is still normal). So... I'm so thankful for Brittany, my wife, who does the three to one like a

This week I feel like I've been falling out of rhythm as far as my start to the day. And I want to blame it on my wrist tracker not going off or me not being able to feel it in the morning. I know its set, but in the last few days, I don't remember it going off at all. I'm thinking maybe I just need to go back to using an alarm that I hear on my phone to get up. I just don't want to wake up my wife who's still getting up with our baby in the night. I've also got our big conference coming up in 2 weeks and it's a new year where I've been wanting to exercise regularly. This week has been good, but at the same time, I feel like I'm just getting through it. How do I get myself into a rhythm? Or am I wanting to do too much?

You know the feeling? You have this idea in your head. You want to see it come to be something more than the idea. You start working on it in some way... And then it comes time to get others involved. So you pitch it. You share it. You talk about it. You let others in on it. And depending on how it goes you feel really good or really crappy. Yet all the while you have this feeling in your gut of "butterflies" or something else like it that I don't know how to describe. It comes and goes but it's always around until the idea either dies or it finally gets created. What is that feeling? Is it something that everybody experiences? Is it the feeling of creating? Or is it the feeling of self-consciousness? Is it a feeling of fear of the unknown? I don't know but I get it somewhat regularly.

We got a sous-vide cooker in a grab for Christmas and we used it for the first time last week. And I have to say it's the most perfectly cooked chicken I've ever had. Granted it took about 90 minutes to cook the chicken and then you have to sear it in a pan, but it was perfect. If you've never cooked with a sous-vide before it's fairly simple. You basically put your meat in a plastic bag in a pot of water and the sous-vide cooks the meat in a hot water bath for over an hour. It's slow cooking instead of fast. And it's worth the wait.

As I look at my computer right now I have a couple of apps that have that dreaded red circle with a number inside at the top right corner of the app. I really don't like that little icon. It gets your attention for sure. But what does it mean? There's some action that I evidently need to take... accept a calendar invite, read emails, upgrade an app, look at something. But, it typically weights all things that need to be looked at the same way, which I wouldn't do my self. Especially for email. I've ended up turning most of them off. All it does it makes me feel like I'm missing out on something that I need to do right away, which isn't true. I don't need to read an email on some marketing promotion right when it comes through or upgrade an app the moment the upgrade is available. I guess I do like knowing that something should be done, but I prefer to know once I decide to spend time in the app, unless it's time-sensitive, which at that point the per

I think I may have written something similar lately, but I'm continuing to learn that part of being creative is sharing your ideas with others and even letting others run with them. To not hold too tightly to your ideas because you think you know best how they should end up. Case in point, I shared an idea for a video with one of my co-workers this week. He caught the vision of it, we talked about it for a bit and then he started running with it. Many times before I might have not shared it until I thought I had it all figured out, but part of the fun of talking about it together and giving him the freedom to go was to see how he communicated the idea then and got others on board and moved it forward. It's not how I would have done it exactly, but then he's not me, and I think he did an awesome job. I want to grow in letting others run. I want to run too, but more of a relay where we cheer each other on, pass the baton and watch as someone else runs fast but maybe a lit

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Cut words down. Eliminate anything that doesn't add anything. Don't try to get too cute with your words. And make what you're writing, what you're creating about one thing, not many. Pick the one thing and just go after it. Make everything you write support that one thing. That's something I've been learning as I continue to write.

Last night I was writing my blog post when my wife leaned over and asked what you writing about tonight? I all of a sudden got very self-conscious about what I was writing about. I said something like, "Don't read what I'm writing as I'm writing." I think some of it had to do with the fact that it was about painting walls, which has been a point of contention in our marriage. My perfectionism. And some of it had to do with me thinking she would feel the same way about writing a blog and having someone look over her shoulder and maybe critique what she was writing as she was writing it. Well, my harshness about her inquisitiveness didn't go over so well. She had no idea I would react that way. It is kind of a hard thing to make sense of... Why is it that I have no problem with people reading my blog after a post is published, but I don't want someone looking over my shoulder as I'm writing or asking me as I'm writing what I'm writing about?

There's something about painting that I loathe, but there's also something about it that I enjoy. I'm also a perfectionist if that hasn't come out in my writings yet. Not a perfectionist in every way, but when it comes to creating, painting, making, etc. I'm a perfectionist. So today, I painted 2 small walls with chalkboard paint. After the second coat of paint, I noticed as it was drying that it was also running/dripping. This is at least the second time that I've noticed this happening when rolling walls. And I can't figure out why. As soon as I see the paint dripping I can't bear to not keep walking over to the wall and watching to see if by some crazy miracle that the drips somehow get absorbed into the wall. But, the thing is I can't do anything about it at that point... so why keep watching the paint dry? I honestly don't know. It's better to just walk away and realize that I'll have to fix it another time. Do you have times w