Could I be the top Muskegon blogger?

Blogger has a cool feature whereby if you view a blogger’s profile, then click on his city (like Muskegon) you’ll find list of other people who use blogger in that city. When a person posts a new blog post or updates their profile, they move to the top of that list. So when I post this, I’m officially the Top Muskegon Blogger …. hehe

Other updates:

• Kelly is about a year away from being able to sit for her RN state exams. The classes are hard, but she’s gotten good comments from instructors and coworkers. She’s going to be a great nurse. She’s also started making fabric crafts and opened up a shop on Etsy where you can buy things. She’s really excited about it and wants to expand it further, but we’re waiting for her first sale. Stop by and let us know what you think! (the address is http://tennisoncreations.etsy.com/ if the link doesn’t work)
• Brooke finished up her girl scout events and meetings for the year. This was her first year and she really enjoyed it. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it as well. It seems to be a really good group for her to be involved in. Next up is getting her involved in a sport or other activity. Sign-ups are happening this summer for cheerleading, but I have my reservations about that. Soccer and T-ball are also options we’re considering.
• Ethan is now, and potty training. Most of the time he’s good about telling us when he has to go, but some days he doesn’t at all. We’re also STILL waiting for him to tell us when he has to poop. He hasn’t done that on the potty at all yet (and we all know how much fun those pull-ups are to change). He’s also just seeming much older and more mature to me. It’s like he’s recently grown 4 inches and doubled his vocabulary and comprehension. Very cool, but makes me realize it’s going fast!
• I’m enjoying work more lately. I’m traveling during the day about 4 days a week and home every night. I work with customers and sales agents throughout the day and enjoy it. For a while I was doing sales trainings and I really enjoyed doing that, but I’d hate the regular overnight travel that being a trainer would come with. In my spare time I’ve learned quite a bit about creating websites using css. There was a lot about websites that I forgot, and much has changed too, but I’m fairly with it for now . I’m enjoying the summer, and bicycling, and being outside. It’s going too fast though! On top of its break-neck speed, all of my auxiliary interests get in the way of relaxing outside and enjoying it too…but it’s who I am.

So now you’re up-to-date on what’s going on with Muskegon’s Top Blogger ….hehe

Oh yeah, my sister is going to have a baby in December or January. It’ll be strange being an uncle, though my other brothers have had that title for 7 years now. She and the baby don’t have an easy road ahead, but with God’s grace they can make it through.

Wow! Things are busy in my neck of the woods! Can’t you tell by the crazy heavy amount of posts?

But seriously, things have been getting busy. This week I have plans 4 out of 5 weeknights, I’m getting up early 2 out of 5 workdays, and the weekend is filling up pretty well too. Of course, if i didn’t have things to do, I’d find plenty to do around home, some stuff that I need to do and a lot of stuff that I would just want to do . That’s ok, busy can be good. Importantly though, busy is good as long as there is a defined time of rest, and over the last 6-12 months, I’ve become MUCH better about taking a time each week exclusively for the purpose of rest.

It makes a huge difference to rest. Rest is different for each person. Some need to sleep, some need to lay in a hammock, some need to do a project they’ve been meaning to. yes, physical activity can be rest for some. I often fall into that category. Sometimes we run so much that just setting aside time to work on a project I’ve been meaning to complete is EXTREMELY restful. In addition, when I get the project done, it no longer hangs over my head as something needing to be done, and thus, rest continues on through the week. Instead of being concerned over something needing to be done, but not having time for it, I can rest in the fact that it is done.

Well, I certainly don’t intend to be long-winded on this post, so I’ll end right after the following tidbit:

The parking lot to my office at 8:11am:

Winter is wonderful, isn’t it?

I was listening to a radio ad for a university today. They asked “If you could do something to make your life better right now, would you?” And then they launched into a sales pitch for their university (“call the university today to sign up for fall classes, we have…<insert college fare>…”). Then they finished up with a call-to-action something like “call today and register”.

There is something very subtle in that commercial. They begin by asking a question, and then go directly into telling us about their product. Problem is, they never really say that their product is the answer to the question. It’s like this:

Commercial: “Would you like to know how to bake cookies?”

Me: “Heck yeah! I likes me some cookies!”

Commercial: “OK! We teach math lessons better than anyone else. Call us today for more information!”

Me: “Wha?”

In my example, the business has a great service, and many people could benefit from math lessons. But math lessons don’t answer the question “Would you like to know how to bake cookies”, nor do they provide a solution if you DO want to know how to bake cookies.

That brings up another point with asking a question at the beginning of a commercial – like what if the answer is not as you anticipated it? Of course it is assumed that a reasonable person would want to make their life better. If a person will do anything to make that happen is the real question. But the purpose of this post is to point out that they don’t tie it all together. If you’re going to ask me if I want to know how to make cookies, you’d better explain to me how you can help me know how to make cookies.

Technorati Tags: Advertising

I know many of you are tech-savvy and already know about Twitter. Some of you use it and love it . But if you don’t know, check out this website. It is a discussion from an NPR show where the guest does a much better job explaining it than I could. It’s about 5 minutes long, but a very easy listen.

If you’re interested enough to sign up, follow me at http://twitter.com/matthewtennison/ once you are signed up!

Side note: Have you ever tried to explain Twitter to someone? How have you done it? Did they “get it”?

Technorati Tags: Twitter

I like to ride my bike around town. Unfortunately that’s not a year-round activity in Michigan. Though I can say that as a kid I would ride my bike occasionally in the winter. That was fun when you hit ice!

I was trying to figure out recently why I like bike riding so much. A few things came to mind:

• Health benefits – Ok, this one is obvious, but it should be included.
• No barriers between you and the world. When you’re in a car, you have metal and glass separating you from everything else. It encapsulates you. When you’re on a bike, you contain the bike in a sense between your legs. That leaves the rest of your body closer to, well, everything else.
• Freedom – you can access more places on a bike than you can in a car. I’ve found sidewalks and paths in the middle of the city I never knew about.
• Photography – I’m not a professional photographer or anything, but I do like taking pictures on occasion. There have been many time where I’ll see something driving along, and not be able to capture it because I couldn’t get to the camera, or I couldn’t stop the car. But if you’re on a bike, it’s much easier to safely stop somewhere and get all the pictures you want!

I think it also slows me down, and creates opportunity to clear my head and even have some conversation with my wife and kids. It is a choice I make to step away from all of the screens in my house (TV, Computer, PDA (still working on turning the cell phone off)) and take in some of the natural beauty of the world.

Anyone else have a love of biking or walking or running?Technorati Tags: bicycling

…or at least it feels like it. In fact, it’s been so long that my preferred blogging tool, Scribefire, has updated two or three times since I last used it. I like some of the new features, but if you’re not into Firefox and Scribefire you probably don’t care And if you do use them….well, you probably already know about them.

Work continues to be a struggle for me, but I continue to make it through. I’ve been with this company for almost three years now, and I rarely take vacation (partially as a security measure) so I decided to take some. Last weekend I took two extra days off and went to my in-laws’ cabin in Northern Michigan. We had a GREAT time, and I was able to relax and reset myself. We didn’t have many plans, so we could take our time and just rest. We ended up going rafting one day, and kayaking the next, which was a LOT of fun! I’d love to get some kayaks for us, but they’re expensive! Even Brooke is able to paddle her own all by herself, and I was surprised! I mean, she’s 6 years old! Yikes!

We’re still fighting debt, and we’re down to our last non-mortgage debt. We’ve lost a little steam lately because it’s summer, and there are so many things to do. Kinda makes us wish we had more money to do more fun things. But then again, that’s why we’re getting out of debt. We’ve got to remember how much more fun we could have if we didn’t have a $200 car payment! We’re hopeful we’ll be out by the end of summer, but that is fast approaching, and I think we might not hit it. We really need to engage the debt snowball more, and start using the money we’ve freed up from other debts to attack the car.

When we were in Cadillac this weekend, we decided we wanted to go to a church up there. Not having any personal recommendations, we cracked open the phone book and found a page and a half of listings for churches! The bummer part is that our fellowship doesn’t have a gathering up there, so we kinda had to guess based on names. We really just wanted a church that was Bible-based and sound. We ended up choosing Independent Bible Church. I couldn’t find anything out about them on the web except their service times, but we tried them anyway.

When we got there, everyone was very friendly, and wanted to introduce themselves. That was very welcoming. the church reminded us exactly the churches we grew up in. Traditional brown brick building, conservative service, pews, hymns, the whole deal. But it also seemed like the speaker (not sure if he was an Elder or Deacon or just a member, but the Pastor was on vacation) wanted to help them be more relevant. he used a laptop with a projector, and had a nice slideshow for song lyrics, and even a PowerPoint to go along with his study.

The problem was, it was like putting a video arcade in a nursing home. Something just doesn’t fit. I think they may be on the right path, but the reality is that a large part of the congregation was older, and probably likes to worship the same way they’ve worshiped for many years. is there anything wrong with that? No. Is there anything wrong with wanting to change to be more relevant to the community and a new generation? If it’s led by God, then no. The point is that those two groups just may not be the best to have in the same service. There is nothing wrong with having a traditional service and a contemporary service. In fact, in many ways it’s better. The form of worship is of much less importance than the object of worship and the quality of teaching.

As far as the teaching goes – it was solidly grounded in the Bible. It was a good message, and the teacher went verse by verse through one passage. While it wasn’t particularly invigorating, it was sound, and we could appreciate that. It goes to show how God can change your heart when you can listen to a less-than-invigorating teacher and not fall asleep .

All-in-all, we miss our church, and look forward to being back there this week. We especially miss the people there. The ones who know us and support us and have invested their time with us. It’s like a sweet aroma.

Well, I still have a job. I thank the Lord, and I also wonder why I’m still where I am.

In a way, I was thinking that God was using this reorganization to move me, because I wouldn’t move otherwise. I have complete faith that He works all things together for good, but I just don’t see how. I don’t know why I’m still where I am. I do know I’m here for a reason. I also know I’m looking at other job opportunities.

A couple of good things have come from the whole experience. It’s made me question if this is really what I should be doing. My wonderful wife bought me a book I’ve been wanting for my birthday. 48 Days to the Work You Love is a book by Dan Miller, and highly recommended by Dave Ramsey. I figure that Dave has really good financial advice, so his recommend on career advice may hold water .  The book asks lots of good questions, and asks me to look at what I like to do, and if what I’m doing fits that.

There is a lot more to blog about on that subject, and I’m considering airing out the answers to many of those questions on my own blog like Mindy. Could be fun

In other news, I’ve been Twittering a lot lately. In fact, I blame that in part for my short-term disappearance from blogging. Ultimately though, Twitter is not a replacement for my blog, as fun as it may be. Why do I Twitter? Well, it’s kind of like a chat room where no one expects you to respond instantly, and you can invite anyone to join your chat room that you want to. What you end up with is a place where you can find out a lot of interesting thoughts from people very easily. Of course, it’s good to contribute too, so others can learn little tidbits about you too.

If you follow my Twitter Feed or follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I recently broke my unbreakable glasses. Yeaa, you know the kind that are so flexible that you can bend them around your finger? Those are the ones that snapped in half two weeks ago. Fortunately I was fitted for contacts last year and I have some left over, even though I don’t wear them. So I’ve been wearing them for a couple weeks now until I order another pair of glasses. They work pretty well, and after I got used to looking in the mirror and not seeing glasses on my face, it was ok .

The only disadvantage to the contacts is that they don’t work quite as well as glasses. I have a slight astigmatism that the contacts can’t correct. End result is that my vision is slightly fuzzier when I wear my contacts. The phenomenon that occurs is that I’ve been feeling fuzzy lately. Not fuzzy like a Muppet, but lacking in clarity. everyday actions have felt cloudy. Anyone else ever had this happen? Fuzzy vision = Fuzzy mental state? I’m adjusting after two weeks of contacts, but still feel it once in a while. It kind of makes me wonder, as I have before, did God make me nearsighted for a reason? Maybe I’m supposed to pay attention to small, close-up details.

Anywho, that’s what’s fit to print Talk to you later.

I once read that if you want your blog to be widely read, you should publish at least twice a week. Hmmm, guess I don’t really want to be widely read.

So today was interesting. I got to spend some good quality time with my wife and kids. We watched “Brother Bear” tonight, which was fun because I haven’t sat down and watched a whole movie in quite a while. Now I’m watching a rerun of House (waiting for the new episodes to start!) and waiting for the dryer to get done drying our sheets.

Other than that, I’m enjoying the weather. It’s finally warming up here in Michigan, and it’s GREAT! Today my father-in-law came over with his truck after work and pulled out a bush from the front of our house that we really didn’t like. I mean, we’ve only disliked it for the 3 and 1/2 years we’ve lived here…so it was about time. Now we just have decide what to replace it with. Maybe I should post some pics and get your advice? I just might do that.

I’m looking forward to having campfires and grilling out for friends, so make sure you set aside a couple of weekends to come over