It was great to become a State Farm auto insurance customer for the first time since a brief stint at the beginning of my career. Other carriers had consistently been lower cost, but this time around a quick quote on the Web showed savings of at least $100 every six months by going with my employer. In a flash I was into the agent's office and signed up. Two days later, we got sideswiped by a car, which served as this week's low point. While cruising down the rightmost lane of Veteran's Parkway en route to dinner and a movie, we watched helplessly as the car in the middle lane lost sight of us in his blind spot. He bumped us against the concrete curb, causing us to lose control of the car momentarily and swerve wildly into back into the middle lane in an over correction, fishtailing until we regained ourselves. I was happy that in those moments while the car was careening around the road, and the adrenaline was coursing through my veins, still my mind kept an inner calm. When we got turned around and back to the site of the other car, and one of its passengers rushed up to me saying that I was at fault, the calm remained. I explained that though my official report may differ from theirs, it was nothing personal. It was tough to shake off the incident as we did the paperwork with the police, then headed off to pizza and a movie for a year-end date. In those moments it's a challenge to figure out what God's purpose was for such an apparently useless incident. Perhaps it was just another daily test to face adversity, compartmentalize it and set it aside with the faith that everything would be all right. Both cars were drivable, no one was hurt, the roads happened to be clear of any other cars. Accidents heighten awareness. Maybe a future unknown disaster will be averted for one of the four of us as a result.
Another comic episode came when I got home late on Thursday. The NCHS coach had left a message on my machine saying that the varsity team had qualified for the consolation championship game of the State Farm Holiday Classic high school basketball tournament, set to start at 6:00. It was 5:55. I shot him a text saying that I was on the way. Good news, he texted back, the game ahead of ours was in overtime so there was time to get over there. I changed clothes, leaped into the car and scurried into the Shirk Center stands. Taking a seat, I noticed that the teams on the court were not ours. Was the overtime game still in progress? No. I was in the wrong gym. Hence the following text: "Crap. I am at shirk. Off i go."
Thursday night was the last work day of 2010. Since my boss set up a performance review with me for Monday morning, I spent my last 90 minutes in the office recapping all the good that had been accomplished this year. The staff grew from 3 to 5, and they gave Dena and me a $50 for the Olive Garden as a Christmas present. It was satisfying to tally that we'd been able to support ten major projects as well as a healthy cluster of developmental activities, succession planning moves, and process improvements.
On Thursday night I celebrated the holiday weekend by staying up until 3:00 a.m. Fellow night owl Jennifer shared a theory that it's an "evening baby" thing - I was born at 9 p.m. Slept for ten hours and popped up at 1 p.m. fully refreshed. Grunged my way to the gym unshowered, unshaved and bespectacled and got in my best workout set of the year:
Double arm curls: 105 lbs x 8
Leg press: 270 x 10
Shoulder press: 122.5 x 8
Leg curls: 125 x 10
Chest press: 180 x 8
Calf raise: 305 x 10
I spent some time during my late night binge researching the local math tutoring community and wondering how I might make inroads. Continuing the quest for my true calling.
Dena got leads on a couple of potential employers... a part-time position for a truck cleaning company in Morton, and a full-time slot with a local firm, both of the marketing variety. As Dena preps her resume and moves ahead it will be fascinating to see if either are the latest petal to bloom on her flowering career.
I jettisoned the desktop computer for good, thereby stamping the laptop a success and allowing us to attach the router to Dena's computer. It clears the way for her to move her office up to the spare bedroom, to move the gaming systems down to the basement, and perhaps for me to nudge forward again the experiment with voice-over equipment.
The first experiment of weekly joys/failures posts is in the books! It's been a device to baseline the lows of my own making, and to ensure that the overwhelming cascade of blessings got its due. Now it's on to the review/preview of 2010/2011 resolutions, a chance to drive another peg into the wall as an anchor to continued growth. May the lows be more shallow and the highs more full for us all.
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