WordPress is neat, but it feels a bit bloated and since I’m learning Rails, it makes sense to move to a blog engine built on that.

What do you think? Should I keep WordPress, or move to Mephisto or Typo?

Also, is it just me or is this blog loaded with too many ads? I really had not been visiting much until recently and my first reaction was, “What was I thinking?”

I was raised Catholic, but there was something about the church that did not seem right, so right after high school I stopped attending. I felt that I knew who Jesus was, but what I was learning at church did not seem right to me. Due to some other things going on in my life, I began to lose hope about life and became depressed. I had tried to live my life the way people said that I was supposed to: I got a degree in business and planned on working in the business world, but my initial experiences there were not as good as I had expected. I was now twenty-eight years old, unemployed, and without a spouse. I knew that something was not right in my life so I tried to find happiness in the places that culture says to find it: alcohol, dance clubs, and everything that normally goes along with the two. But I still was not satisfied. Something was missing. I turned to self-help books to try to find the answers, but what I was looking for was not there.

A good friend was consistently inviting me to a Protestant church, but I kept refusing. I had tried the church experience earlier in my life and did not feel like there was anything there worth going back to. Eventually, though, he begged me to assist in setting up for some big-name Christian bands who were going to play there. I helped and attended the concert, but it did not change my mind about religion. Not only did the concert not really seem different than a regular concert (except for the lack of drugs, fights, and other things that typically go along with similar events), but it did not really seem like church. I continued to go to night clubs. I knew I would never find my wife there, but was hoping to fill the loneliness in my heart somehow. This was the only way I knew to do so.

One night the strangest thing happened: women that I had just met at a dance club began talking to me about Jesus. It was strange because I had never had nor heard of people talking about Jesus in an environment of alcohol, tobacco, and very close dancing. When the topic of Christian music came up, I was able to engage in the conversation due to my experience at the concert. On another night at the dance club, another woman began telling me of all the great things God was doing for her. A trend was occurring. Looking back, it seems that God was trying to get my attention again, but I was not fully listening and my depression was getting worse. Consequently, I scheduled an appointment with a psychologist.

I was not surprised when the doctor immediately wanted to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist so that I could be prescribed medication. I told the doctor I preferred to have a few appointments with him first and that we would decide from there. He agreed. After the third appointment, he declared there was nothing wrong with me and began sharing about Jesus as much as he could in the secular environment. He was generically talking about “religion,” but since his words were the same words verbatim that my friend used previously, God finally got my attention. It was now time for me to give him mine.

Through these numerous conversations I had learned that the Bible says that everyone has broken God’s laws; no one is completely perfect. I also learned that there is a penalty for breaking God’s laws: not having eternal life. But Jesus Christ paid this penalty through his own death on the cross, becoming the substitute for anyone who believes that he did so. This was much different than what I had learned in Catholicism, but something that I always felt deep within my heart based upon my own experiences reading the Bible at a younger age. But I had never acted on it. Now I would.

I attended church with my friend on the very next Sunday. At the end of the service when the pastor explained what others had already told me about who Jesus really was and what he did for those who believe in him, I responded to the pastor’s invitation to come to the front of the church to pray, and to turn my life over to God. I began attending services every Sunday, and even ran the sound equipment for the youth group. As I was serving God, I began to see the blessings in my life. My depression had turned to joy.

It was on a Valentine’s Day that I was asked to run the sound equipment for the church’s kickoff event for their new couples ministry. Since their lead sound person was married, they wanted him to be able to attend the event with his wife. I was single so they asked me to help. Since I still had longing feelings for a spouse, I agreed because I figured it would be better than being home alone on that night. I had prayed that if God wanted me to be married, that he would give me a wife who wanted to serve him and that I would immediately know who she was when I met her.

About two weeks after Valentine’s Day, my mother approached me about a woman she thought I should meet. My mother had reservations about this—she never tried to “set me up” with anyone in this manner and did not know what my reaction would be. I have to admit that my pride would have gotten in the way in the past, but this time I had a feeling inside of me that told me that this was okay. The next day my mother supplied me with a picture of the woman. I had already decided to meet her, but this picture further encouraged me to do so!

That night I called her. Two days later we met each other. One week later we were engaged. About five months later we were married. We had confirmation from God, each other, our premarital counselors, and the pastor that performed the ceremony that this relationship was a “God thing.” She had even prayed a similar prayer at about the same time I had prayed mine. We were married in 2003, have a beautiful daughter, and a son on the way. I thank God daily for bringing all of them into my life, but the greatest benefit is that I know that I have eternal life.

…that so many spam bots are interested in linking to this site.

Read my recent post here and look at the pingback from “The best blog about Endodontists” near the bottom of the comments. The interesting thing about that site is that they added content to the excerpt of my post. So, if you happened to be looking for “endodontist” blogs, and need a “Student Credit Card,” head on over!

A couple of weeks ago, a dental crown fell off while I was eating a Tootsie Roll. I have not eaten one of these for many years and I guess I was never really supposed to . I went to a General Dentist who tried to reshape the original tooth to try to get a new crown to stay on better. I received the original crown in CA and now live in CO. After about two hours, the dentist told me that I had two options:

1. Get a root canal so he could better shape the tooth.
2. Get a crown, but it may fall off again within five years.

I’ve never had a root canal and didn’t really want one, but it seemed like the better option so I was referred to an endodontist.

I talked to some people who had root canals and most of them who had recent experiences had good experiences so I was looking forward to a pain free experience. Unfortunately, my tooth refused to get numb, even after two shots of “the good stuff.” The endodontist didn’t call it “the good stuff,” but that’s what it was and I forget the real name. Once again I was given two options:

1. Cope with the pain for about 20 seconds until he could drill through the tooth and put a shot directly into the nerve.
2. Reschedule for another time where I could be put out via IV sedation.

This was a tough decision. I, like most people, hate the feeling of dental drilling, even when numb. 20 seconds without being numb was not something I wanted to experience, but I began to think of it from a purely logistical standpoint. 20 seconds of pain versus:

1. Rescheduling and taking more time off from work.
2. Finding someone to drive me which is either:
• My wife, which would involve bringing our two children or getting a babysitter.
• A friend, who happens to not be working on a weekday.
3. Making the hour long drive to the endodontist again.
4. Spending a day (or so) recovering from being sedated.

With all of that taken into consideration, 20 seconds didn’t seem like that much of a hassle so I chose the pain.

The interesting thing about the story is that I shared my experience with a number of people and noticed that those who said they would take one option over the other tended to have one thing in common: either having or not having children. Those with children (at an age still under their care) tended to pick the pain while those without children tended to pick the rescheduled appointment and comfort. Children certainly do modify our priorities and help us to pick the choice that maximizes our time with them or our inconvenience to them (e.g., babysitter or sitting in a dentist’s office).

I apologize for the site being down for a bit. I was in the process of changing hosts and, in my backup, did not realize that this site was using a database from another domain name. Therefore, I didn’t back up this database and accidentally deleted it!

Luckily, though, my former Web host was able to restore it from a backup. I really like my former Web host and have always had great support like this. Why did I change hosts, then?

First, the former host, United Hosting has servers in the UK, which always felt a bit slow. Second, I started my account with them so long ago that I’m really overpaying now. I could have switched to a newer plan, but: Third, I have been getting into Ruby on Rails development and the new host supports Rails development. Expect this blog to be converted to Rails as soon as I learn enough to be able to do it!

So, who is this new host? It’s Site5.