journaling: enabled

I’ve not been sleeping well lately. I know part of it is due to fighting a cold and being a little congested, but I think a large part of it is stress. Some of the stress is work-induced and some is from home. I’m meeting with my boss on Friday to talk about how I can better manage the work-related stress. I think part of it is I need to get back into the habit of leaving work at work. I used to be pretty good at it but haven’t done so well lately. I think it would help if I didn’t use my work laptop at home so much. Another part is simply juggling some of the more recent challenges that have come up. One of those challenges is combatting phishing emails. It’s a serious security issue, but is very difficult to deal with programatically. It would be lovely to be able to whack some people upside the head with a cluebat for giving out their username and password because someone has told them that if they don’t, their email will go away. Another part of my stress is here at home. Finances are tight, in part due to Liz not getting called as much for substitute teaching jobs. I know she’s frustrated by it too. Hopefully things will be picking up soon as some of the cold bugs get going.

I had another thought on last night. I believe that some people have failed to acknowledge our nation’s place in the world. I believe that for many years we’ve often taken the approach of an older brother who knows better than everyone else what needs to be done and doesn’t believe anyone else can do it right. I don’t think many of us take a look at our country from the outside. We need to acknowledge that the world is a very different place than it was 25 years ago. We can’t pick and choose what we believe to be different but need to acknowledge the whole picture. It *does* matter what other people, other nations think.

On a different note, this past weekend I took our church website in a new direction. Two years ago I tried out a couple of content management systems and decided I didn’t like them, so I wrote my own, albeit rudimentary. Last week I re-visited the issue and decided that at least one product had improved enough that it could be adapted to fit our needs. So, our church website is being rebuilt on the Joomla platform. I’m pretty happy with how it’s turning out and I’m hearing that our members are happy about it as well.

Well, that’s all for now… I’m going to relax and play a game with my wife before heading to bed. Hopefully our daughter decides to actually go to sleep before too much longer.

A friend of mine asked me last night how Liz and I knew we wanted kids. I know my wife has always wanted kids and prayed that she’d be able to. Of course, she wanted to be an elementary school teacher too, so she really loved kids. Myself, I don’t know that I knew I wanted kids so much as I knew I didn’t not want kids (yeah, how’s that for a confusing sentence full of negatives). I think that up until I met flutterbyefred, I was more concerned with the precursor step of actually meeting someone who was willing to go out with me. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the birth of my daughter changed me in ways I cannot describe and wouldn’t have predicted. I’m considerably more protective of children, particularly babies. I used to be more pro-choice than I am now (not to say I’m exactly of the “pro-life” stance now, but more in that direction than before). When I read about the death of a young child, I cry inside. When it happens to a friend, I’m heart-broken (r.i.p. Sam).

On a totally different note, I’ll be very happy when the elections are over, regardless of the outcome. I’m quite tired of campaign ads. Especially for the Senate race in Minnesota. I feel sorry for the poor souls get to make a choice in that election, as I don’t feel I’d want to vote for either of the two major party candidates. I watched the presidential debate last night. I think it’s the first one I’ve ever watched. One particular question jumped out at me… the one regarding whether the running mate is qualified. Mr. McCain attacked Mr. Biden’s foreign policy stance … particularly on his suggestion that Iraq be divided into 3 separate countries. I think if Mr. McCain took a look at the history of that area, the track record for what it takes to keep regions of disparate beliefs like that together, and examine what’s really going on there, he might find the idea more plausible. It just might be that the only reason Iraq stayed together as a nation was because it had a ruthless leader.