Daily Routine

Wake Up
Shave
Shower
Dress
Commute
Park on level P3
Ride up the elevator
Enter office
Check e-mail
Make coffee
Work
Lunch
Work
Leave office
drive home
enter house
sit on couch
run
eat dinner
watch tv
sleep
(repeat)


This is my routine. I do this five days a week and have been doing this since October. Just let me premise this with the fact that I am very happy with my job and excited about the opportunities it offers. All the people I work with are awesome and I have been afforded a lot to experience high quality individuals in an exciting work atmosphere.

However, being a 23-year old kid sometimes flares up and the corporate life overwhelms me. This probably happens a couple (2-3) times a week and is very short-lived. I began thinking about this when it occured to me one day around 12:30pm that a year ago I was cruising up and down the west coast on spring break. And at the present time I was currently sitting in a chair eating lunch on a paper towel alone in the breakroom.

Quite a change of scenery - one that is all the more frightening when I think about how fast the time has gone. People would always say that -man time has flown by- and everyone nods in response...but I don't think it really mattered how fast time was going until now. After all, I know time flies when you are having fun...but isn't it supposed to slow down when you are working? I guess not...

I started thinking back over the last 6 months since I've started working and what also frightened me is my inability to remember it. It is filed away into one of those Bruce Almighty file cabinets in my brain. Literally, what do I do on a weekly basis that is memorable? What, if anything, is creating memories? I find it hard to fathom that the main things I remember occured over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a day I took off in February. Little to nothing that occurs in my life is memorable during a week - unless some part of that routine I wrote earlier is changed. Is this bad? Or is this something to get used to?

Part of me feels like I really dove into this whole corporate thing way too early - and part of me feels like I'm nervously freaking out for no reason - am I placing too much value on free time as a 23 year old or too little value on time at a desk as a 23 year old? I guess there is value in both but I'd like to live a memorable life and I definitely don't want to wake up 10 years from now remembering a couple days of each of those years...

Perfect

Latest Man Points handed out today

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/COMBOSR-Brand-Releases-prnews-14553226.html

COMBOS(R) Brand Releases Manliest Cities in America Rankings With Nashville at Top and New York at Bottom

Manly Study Highlights


Nashville is the Mecca of manliness. With its high number of NASCAR enthusiasts, popularity of hunting and fishing and concentration of BBQ restaurants, the Music City stands alone atop the mountain of manliness.
Despite high ratings in the "bowling" category, New York City ranks 50th out of 50 in the study due to low scores in manly indicators such as "fishing," "home improvement" and "drag racing."
If you're in the Midwest and looking to enjoy a game with a cold beverage, look no farther than St. Louis, which has the highest concentration of sports bars in the country.
Grand Rapids, Mich. has more monster truck rallies, per capita, than any other U.S. city.
Philadelphia and Chicago, with low scores in the "hunting" category fail to crack the top 25 (ranked 30th and 46th respectively).
The men of Oklahoma City know how to snack with gusto. Their city owns the highest purchase rate of salty snacks, such as COMBOS®.
Got chainsaws? What about hammers and power drills? The men of New Orleans do. The "Big Easy" boasts more hardware stores per capita than any other U.S. city.

The Manly Methodology*

The rankings were determined using 50 of the largest metropolitan areas as defined by the United States Census Bureau, which includes a central city and the surrounding county (or counties).

Each metro area received a manliness rating between 0 and 100 based on how well it performed in each of the study's manly categories. Factors used to determine the manliest city rankings included the number of U.S.-made cars driven in the city, number of sports bars and BBQ restaurants, number of home improvement and hardware stores as well as manly salty snacks consumption. All data was adjusted by the current population of the cities to arrive at "per capita" figures, providing an accurate comparison between cities of varying sizes.

"America's Manliest Cities"

1. Nashville, Tenn.
2. Charlotte, N.C.
3. Oklahoma City, Okla.
4. Cincinnati, Ohio
5. Denver, Colo.
6. St. Louis, Mo.
7. Columbus, Ohio
8. Kansas City, Mo.
9. Indianapolis, Ind.
10. Toledo, Ohio
11. Memphis, Tenn.
12. Richmond, Va.
13. Columbia, S.C.
14. Orlando, Fla.
15. Dayton, Ohio
16. Salt Lake City, Utah
17. Milwaukee, Wis.
18. Minneapolis, Minn.
19. Cleveland, Ohio
20. Detroit, Mich.
21. Jacksonville, Fla.
22. Phoenix, Ariz.
23. Birmingham, Ala.
24. Grand Rapids, Mich.
25. Tampa, Fla.
26. Harrisburg, Pa.
27. New Orleans, La.
28. Las Vegas, Nev.
29. Pittsburgh, Pa.
30. Philadelphia, Pa.
31. Louisville, Ky.
32. Atlanta, Ga.
33. Providence, R.I.
34. Dallas, Texas
35. Buffalo, N.Y.
36. Rochester, N.Y.
37. Baltimore, Md.
38. Boston, Mass.
39. Houston, Texas
40. Seattle, Wash.
41. Sacramento, Calif.
42. Miami, Fla.
43. San Diego, Calif.
44. Oakland, Calif.
45. Washington, District of Columbia
46. Chicago, Ill.
47. Portland, Ore.
48. San Francisco, Calif.
49. Los Angeles, Calif.
50. New York, N.Y.

A word from the Australians (2)

Night vision (2)
"I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness."
Isaiah 45:3 NLT
Sometimes God doesn't tell us why because He wants us to know Who. In Psalm 23, David goes from talking about God, "The Lord is my Shepherd," to talking with Him, "Thou art with me." What happened in between? David learned that no matter how dark the way is, the Lord is there to guide us. He discovered that it's better to walk through the valley with God than stand on the mountaintop alone. God doesn't always light the path in advance, but He promises, "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown" (Isa 43:2 NLT). When you feel like you're out of your depth or in over your head, claim the promise! Job had many unanswered questions, but when he began to understand the difference between reason and relationship, he told God, "I...heard about You before, but now I have seen You" (Job 42:5 TLB). When you can't find the reason, trust the relationship. God won't fail you. Contrary to what you may think, darkness isn't always the work of the enemy. Sometimes it's one of God's best teaching tools. "About the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea...And when they saw Him...they were greatly amazed...beyond measure, and marvelled" (Mark 6:48-51 NKJV). You get to know the Lord by going through storms with Him. The Psalmist said, "To You the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to You" (Ps 139:12 NLT). So instead of running from your problems, ask God to develop your night vision, to show you "the treasures of darkness...hidden in secret places" (Isa 45:3 NRS).