the job situation...

 well, today I'm being laid off by the non-profit side of the company I've been working for the past five years. (and contractually for longer than that) There's no more money, and the side company we started to leap to when the money ran out didn't ramp up in time. It'll still continue to ramp up and I'll stay on contractually on the
 for profit side (Red Penguin), but it's kind of the end of the line for me. It's been an interesting couple of weeks realizing that things were coming to a close.

 A little over a week ago we were hanging out at a local mexican restaurant / bar after church and I asked my friend Dave about how our mutual friend Brian was doing at First Pres (the churhc I interviewed at in January). He mentioned that he was a bit streesed since they still hadn't found anyone and had been asking Dave how I was doing. I had promised Brian a call in March and figured I'd check in the next day.
                                  
 We had a meeting Wednesday morning between the other guy I work with and myself about our finanacial situtation and we worked the numbers over, trying to figure if we had another month of salary left. I brought up First Pres and we decided that it would  be best to give him a call.

 Talking to Brian, I worked out the possibility of coming on board for a 90 day trial period just to see how things went. Brian went to HR and talked it over, but they said that since they were an At Will employer (like all of Colorado), it made more sense to just hire me so that I could get benefits. So, I had an interview last Thursday...  an interview that I really feel I knocked out of the park. It was one of those moments where I felt like every word popped out exactly where it needed to pop out. Brian got called back into his supervisors office to talk about the interview afterwards, but he had a glimmer in his eye when I left.

 Tuesday I got a call that they were moving forward, but Jim the worship pastor (the aforementioned supervisor) needed to talk to Jim the senior
 pastor and Jim the executive pastor. Yesterday I got the call saying I'd been offered the job. It was maybe the mostly strangely worded job offer I've ever had.

 he said something along the lines of being "desirous to take the next
 step and engage with me".

 anyway, I go in to sign the paperwork on Monday, which apparently will also be my first day. It'll be a bump in pay along with a budget to buy
 production oriented toys (hopefully including a MacBookPro with the newly released bundle of universal apps until Apple releases the new PowerMacs.). I guess my first task will be to evaluate where the church is currently at with their production equipment and start to craft a new plan to focus where they're headed in the future.

 I turned the position down before in January, but the main issues at that point was this nebulous two months. I really wanted to turn things around
 at Red Penguin so I could stay on board there. Thankfully, with the position still open, now that I know that it's not going to happen I've
 got a pretty great safety net. God's a good God.

 In any case, it's a new adventure... one that I wasn't really planning for. It seems like it's a God thing though, so I'm going to go and be obedient doing it, and be to be able to make a bit more money is I think going to be a real blessing. Thanks to all of those who've been praying the past few months. Ang and I really appreciate it.

Bri

--
not getting enough of my blather?
check out http://flabbyironman.blogspot.com
and the Colorado Springs Film Society at
http://csfilmsociety.com

a proposal... (and not even an indecent one)

this morning while I was driving back from my weekly breakfast, I took
a side route that I drive every once in a while that takes me up and
around the foothills on the north side of the city. I've driven it
quite a few times, but I've never ridden it and every so often I think
about riding it.

While thinking about riding it, I came upon an interesting idea. To
the best of my knowledge Mr. Bolder in Boulder has never actually been
to the Springs. And I, for whatever reason, have never made it up to
Boulder. So here's my proposal... I propose two epic training rides.
One in Boulder and one in Colorado Springs that rides the most
difficult sections of road. Bolder (and crew?) come down here for a
ride and then I'll come up with my crew for a ride... A little give
and take if you may.

On the Colorado Springs side, we'll start on the Northside where I
live and work our way down to Garden of the Gods. We'll climb through
the Garden to Old Colorado City and then work our way up Gold Camp
Road, we'll then continue on Gold Camp and wind around to the Cheyenne
Mountain descent. From there we'll ride back around through downtown
and back up to Centennial Boulevard where we'll ascend up and around
to Woodmen. All said, it should be at least 5000' worth of climbing
hopefully.

I don't have a suggestion for when this ride should take place, but I
definitely think it does need to happen.

I don't know what kind of a route Bolder would put togeher but I can't
imagine that he can come up with something nearly as butt-kicking (and
I can make it even more butt-kicking if I need to)(I think that's a
challenge)

what's up...

not all that much actually, just work and more work. sorry for the lack of posting.

Last monday the cycling season started with an absolutely gorgeous day. the president of the bike club exclaimed that even though dinner rides didn't start for another month, it was definitely too nice not to have a dinner ride. Angela and I rushed across town to get there in time and showed up what we thought was 15 minutes late. We went out for our own little ride and turned around because Ang was hungry. We got back to the park and saw people were showing up. Apparently we misread the e-mail and showed up an hour ahead of time. so, we got two rides in for probably around 26 miles for the dya.

Saturday was ride number two. The Saturday rides with the bike club tend to be a bit more hard core than other rides and so i knew that I'd be in for at least a little bit of pain. It turns out of course that I was in for much more pain than that. 'The Normals' aren't out yet, so it was all hardcore riders and we were starting out by climbing a couple mile stretch to a Fort Carson entrance. Did I mention 35mph windgusts and dust storms? i ate a lot of dust and was still hacking up things this morning.

Sunday was ride number three. Nothing too exciting, the clubs Sunday Social Ride is just that, a bunch of people gabbing while they pedal. my butt REALLY hurt when we started out. Thankfully things settled down. I got some sprinting practice in posting corners and a good time was generally had by all. heh.

anyway, the seasons started. There's a 5k on Saturday, but it's not in our budget and there will be time for races in the future. We sat down and actually wrote out a budget for the first time tonight. We've goofed around with it in the past, but we really want to get serious about paying debt off. I don't think we designed the perfect budget, but hopefully this will give us a leaping off point.

sorry for the quiet. hopefully it will end soon. i'll explain more about what's going on when I can, but let it be known that things are alright. There's still a chance things could dive into the beyond, but we're doing what we can to avoid that happening. next month i learn whether I can go straight from learning to walk where I'm at in the company I work for to learning to run. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that that transition to running is going to happen smoothly. Keep praying if you would though.

more later.
Brian

begets

1. To father; sire.
2. To cause to exist or occur; produce: Violence begets more violence

E.J., the pastor at the Refuse has been talking about beget quite a
bit lately... the cause and effects of situations. The type of thing
that, when you're in a reflective mood, makes you stop, pause, and
ponder. Sometimes the reflective mood in my head comes from
depression, though mostly that's just moroseness. Other times, the
triggers are smaller things. Tonight, Angela and I saw Elizabethtown
and it got me thinking about begetting.

I have a small list of movies, not even necessarily what I would call
my 'Favorite' movies, that make me want to make movies. They're not
necessarily great movies, they're just the ones that for whatever
reason poked me and told me to create, to cause to exist or occur, to
produce. There are maybe half a dozen to a dozen movies on the list.
It's rare when one comes around.

Tonight, the movie added to that list is Elizabethtown. A friend lent
me a pre-release copy because I hadn't had a chance to see it. Cameron
Crowe, like John Hughes in the early part of his career, tends to be
one of my button pushers and I'm not entirely sure why I never got
around to seeing it in the theaters. Actually, I do know why. It
appeared in the dollar theater for a week and left before Ang and I
could get there.

In any case, I've had this copy for a couple days and I've been vowing
to overdose on a whole series of Crowe films.

I don't want to turn this into any sort of a review. I just want to
say it inspired me to create. if only I could bottle the feeling up so
that I could use it at a time more practical than 1:10 AM on an early
Sunday morning.

We've hired a sales guy at the office. I don't know if it will help,
but it certainly can't hurt. On top of the fact that we hired a sales
guy, we hired a guy who has a long history of selling creative and
already has thoughts on places to hit. I hope it's the answer.

I turned down a job this week, partially because I wanted to fix this
existing problem, but also because it wasn't truly what I wanted to
do. Thankfully, my friend offering the job, told me to call back in
March when I might better know the situation.

I've been buried in work this week trying to finish a promotional
video for the music festival I work at every year. Thursday night was
an all-nighter and Friday could have been if we hadn't had a friend
coming over for dinner and a movie. Today was a full day and tomorrow
will be up until the Superbowl. It IS almost done though, and then
I'll post so you can see what's taken me away from blogging.

Go rent Elizabeth town when it comes out on Tuesday and pay close
attention to the last twenty minutes. Those were the magic minutes,
the film-making and creating moments. Those are the ones I'll rewatch
and try and inspire myself from. Those are the minutes from which I'll
take the music that carries me there when I need to create.

more later.

a thought for the evening...

I've never actually gotten up out of bed to blog about something that
was racing through my head. But I was thinking about something my
friend and pastor E.J. said at church tonight. We've been working our
way through the day of pentecost, but at the end of the sermon, E.J.
went off on a tangent about the way we mistranslate the word amen. (we
had been talking about the imperfect and perfect in Greek and how this
particular piece of scripture was meant to imply that instead of it
being something they had done, it was something they were continually
doing... that it was the imperfect tense, indicating that it was
ongoing.

Anyway...

When we say amen, we generally ascertain that it means "So Be It".
It's an ending. The Amen rings and people are done with whatever it is
they're doing. The proper translation though is much more of an
action... "I'm going to do everything on my part to make it happen".
Strong's concordance says this "a primary root; to build up or
support; to foster as a parent or nurse; to trust or believe, to be
true or certain..." I didn't think it affected me as much as it did
until I was lying in bed rolling it around in my mind.

I put my final save the company plan into effect today and it's
already bearing some flowers. I'm not going to say fruit yet, but I
think it could help. If not, I turned in the resume my friend had
requested and I should hear about the other job relatively soon.

and as I continue to pray about the company and job switches, I say "Amen".

ok. Back to bed.