Man, has a lot of crazy stuff gone down since my last blog. I don't really know why I stopped updating. I've been a little busy of course, but not so busy that I couldn't blog. I did start another blog specifically to follow myself and Tiffany along our path to parenthood, so I've been kinda keeping up with that (it's about due for an update as well). I haven't really had the urge to write a whole bunch though. Of course I've been playing a lot of video games, because that's what losers winners do.

As I note in the other blog, Tiffany has been really tired during this first trimester so it leaves a lot of my nights wide open and I just sit and play Gears of War 2, Rock Band 2, Fable 2, Mercenaries 2, or something of the sort (and yes, I'm just now realizing that all of the games I've been playing lately are strictly sequels). One cool thing about playing so many games is that I've been able to "hang out" with Aaron, who is now in stupidly-sunny-and-warm Florida, quite a bit, as well as Randy, who is still in slightly-warmer-than-Oklahoma Plano, Texas (or close enough at least) and Josh, who is about a three minute drive from my house. It really is a good way to keep in touch with people, these online games.

I'm updating this during my break at work right now. Work has been horrible just fantastic lately and I would rather never have to go back ever ever ever really enjoy coming in every day. On a serious note though, I've been really pushing myself to do better at work to try and get noticed more. I do actually like a lot of things about my job and I'd like to work here for a while. However, I need to move up. I need to push myself more so I can get put into bigger and better roles so I can better provide for my family. The ultimate goal here is to be able to make enough dough so Tiffany can be a stay-at-home mom. I would really love for that to happen, but it would take a LOT more money than I'm making now. I mean... a lot. Like a whole bunch. Yeah. See, at this point she makes a little more than me anyways, plus since she works for the state, our benefits are with her, and they're NOT taken out of her base pay. So yeah, lots of the kizash. It's really an unrealistic goal, but I can hope and pray, I suppose. As a matter of fact, I'd say it would be more likely for me to be a stay-at-home dad than her be a stay-at-home mom. Which is WEIRD. I just really don't know if I could do it. But anyways, neither is a possibility any time soon if ever, so I might as well not even worry about it.

Saturday night, Tiffany and I went to Pastor Marty's house for a planning meeting for camp this year. As I was telling Tiffany, I didn't realize just how much we were going to be planning--rather, how important the things we were going to plan were. For instance, a lot of debate was going on about cutting camp down by a day or keeping it at 5 days. That's a humongous decision and I just didn't expect to even be a part of that. After thinking about it, it does make me feel good to know that we had such a good impact on camp last year that we're a big part of planning it this year. I'll basically be flying solo at camp this year, as Tiffany will be working as much as possible so she will be able to take a full 12 weeks off when the baby comes in September. She's going to help me plan things and is probably going to come to the campgrounds after she gets off work that week and help with the last part of activities and come to dinner and service and such.

Last year, I was really nervous about camp. It was a total attack and I let it get to me for a long time until we actually got there, but it affected the planning and got Tiffany and I into probably our biggest argument since we've been married. Then while I was there I was attacked with horrendous back pain and shin splints and my plantar fasciitis acting up. This year I'm not allowing the attacks beforehand at least. Anyways, this year I'm really excited about it. Our next meeting isn't until the 23rd of March, and we'll be going to the camp grounds for that.

Anyways, that's my post. Hope you all enjoyed it.

-Ryan J. Schwimmer

First off, I know it's been a retardedly long time since I've written. I do so very much apologize for that. The truth here is that I've just been incredibly busy. Since my last post, Tiffany and I were asked to take over VBS duties at church with two days notice. That was awfully interesting. We had a good time. I know there's pictures out there somewhere of me running around in a low-budget superhero costume, but I'll have to get my hands on them. It was a nice time though, in all seriousness. I think overall it really showed Tiffany and I that we can really do anything that we're asked to do in a pinch.

To let you know how horrible and non-committal I am about writing this entry right now for some reason, I wrote the above paragraph yesterday. Sigh. I don't know what's wrong. I guess I've just been busy and then when I do sit down to write I just don't feel there's too much to write about or something. Tiffany's playing Wii Fit right now, and that's an interesting purchase. I've been trying to do it every day, but I overworked myself and my shin splints came back that I had really badly after VBS. That was horrible.

Today at church, Marty gave us all a challenge to pick one of the gospels and read it over and over for thirty days. Or four weeks. He mentioned both time periods, so I'm really not sure which one to do. I've been thinking about reading through the gospels anyways, so I found it awfully interesting that he made that 'challenge.' I really need to do this one, because I really haven't been in the Word as much as I want to be. Even I realize this but for some reason I don't fix it. I don't know what's up with that.

I know this is a very unfocused blog post after I mentioned that the blogs that I'd like to do are very topical and such, but oh well. I haven't been talking to many people lately because I've been so busy and such. Tonight is Summerslam, so Josh and Sheila and possibly Adam are coming over to watch that. Should be fun. Anyways, I'll say this again, I'm going to try to update this more often. Sorry for the lame post, but at least it's something, right?

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I regrettably approve this blog.*

It has been a while since my last blog. Of course, this wasn't intentional by any means. To tell you the honest truth, every night I've sat with my computer looking at this blank screen trying to figure out what to write. Writer's block is something that's plagued me often since I started writing in early high school. I haven't found a great cure for it. I've read numerous writing prompts online and nothing really struck my fancy. I've wanted to keep my blog posts more focused, not just updating everyone on my day which I was guilty of a while back, so it's been a little tough. I don't actually have a point to this blog in mind as I type right now, I'm hoping something turns up... maybe I'll talk about Writer's Block itself.

Sometimes when I get writer's block I wonder if it means something more than being out of ideas or uninspired. For instance, sometimes I wonder if it means I'm not really meant to be a writer. Do all writers get blocked like this all the time? Obviously not all the time because they're still pumping stuff out. It really sucks to have a desire to write but be completely uninspired at the same time.

I guess that's a very general issue as well. It sucks to have a desire to do anything and be completely uninspired to do it. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I'm suffering from that in at least three different places right now. Obviously the first is the writing. I just haven't had any motivation or ideas to help me write. Another thing would be dieting/exercising. I really horribly badly need to get back on my diet and start exercising on a very regular basis. I'm horribly out of shape, badly overweight, and extremely unhealthy. I think it's gotten to the point where I'm actually a little self-conscious about it, too, which is something fairly new.

I used to be the embodiment of not caring what other people thought, especially when it came to my appearance. I don't know whether it was getting married or just growing up, but I do care a little now. I still don't care a lot, mind you, but I definitely care a little. So I don't know what's going on with that, but it's definitely something I need to do. I read that Blake has lost 24 pounds. How awesome is that? Pretty awesome, that's how awesome. I would like to lose about double that. Honestly even triple.

And the most important thing that I have the desire to do but am completely uninspired to do at the moment for some reason (DEVIL) is reading my Bible. I was doing very well for a long time about reading every day, but I haven't read for about a week because I don't know what I'm meant to be reading. I know that just reading is better than trying to figure out what to read and not reading, but for some reason I am just uninspired.

So, I'm not sure what exactly to do about it, but hopefully things will change. A good kick in the right direction would be that the repair on my car would be something covered under warranty or by recall. That would be nice. Anyways, thanks for reading, comment, and be on the lookout for something big.

-Ryan J. Schwimmer

I wanted to write a little bit about families in this entry. I don't really know why, but the thought entered my head while at work today and I thought I'd run with it. Families are very interesting things, and how we perceive them, or even just how we perceive the word, can be strange. I can't speak for everyone, so I'll just talk about my own experience.

I think for everyone, family is a very important part of the early years of life. This isn't exactly a profound statement. However, at some point I started to despise my family. Maybe that's a little too harsh of a word, but I hated the dysfunction going on around me. I got to a point somewhere in middle school (shortly after my parents divorced) where my friends became ultimately more important to me than my family. I wasn't shy in expressing that my family was easily second on my list behind my friends. I think this is also the reason I have so many really close friends.

Early in middle school I became very good friends with Nathan, Aaron, and Blake, and their families. Well, not so much Nathan's, ironically, but definitely Aaron and Blake's. I was at a point where I called both of their parents mom and dad and their houses were like second (and third) homes for me. I cringed any time there was a family dinner or family gathering looming, or any time my friends would be out of town or busy. I didn't like going home because I didn't have a very good relationship with my mom and I hated my little brother. At this time, obviously, I was living with my mom, but even when that changed, I still preferred my friends over my family because I had grown so close to them.

My mom marrying a redneck she met at a country and western bar and moving into a fifth wheel trailer in the middle of nowhere certainly didn't help things. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I'm making it sound like I'm blaming everyone in my family for this problem but I do realize that my own attitude very much determined this, by the way. I moved in with my dad, and shortly thereafter he married Adam's mom. The only good thing to come out of that mess was becoming better friends with Adam, yet another friend I became very close to and I still consider a brother. Things were just happening all around me in my family that I absolutely couldn't stand. I hated every-other-weekend and going out to my mom's. I would just sit on the phone the entire time or play video games or something. But I also didn't enjoy being at home, either. I was really only happy when I was hanging out with one of my friends.

I recall a lot of times throughout high school when I actually had a mind of my own (Right? Right.) answering questions either in conversation or in essay form or something of the sort about how I didn't even consider my "family" family. My friends were my real family, and that's honestly how I felt. And oh, man, did it ever get worse when I had a girlfriend. In case you weren't aware, I have a very obsessive personality. I'm not saying that when I had a girlfriend I was obsessive and creepy, but I put a lot of myself into the relationship, most likely trying to fill something that I felt I was missing because I hated my family.

So, there are two questions that are coming out of this. The first question is, "Where was God this whole time?" Now, first of all, the way I worded the question makes me sound like one of those losers when something bad happens and they say "Where's GOD?" I'm not saying that at all. What I mean is, where was my relationship with God this whole time? The answer: It was all over the place. For a while early in high school I was very active with my Youth Group, though one could argue that our main focus wasn't God in the first place. So, really, for the most part, a lot of this was either when I was too young to understand what truly focusing on God was, or I knew but wasn't putting forth the effort that I should have been. However, I can't honestly look back and think that if my relationship with God was ever-present that entire time, things would have been better with my family.

The second question is just the follow-up. How are things now? Completely and utterly different. Now that I'm an adult (and I do use the term loosely), I have a great relationship with each of my parents. I don't despise my stepdad, and I'm old enough to see that in his own detached way, he really does love Alex and I better than like his own kids. My relationship with my mother has definitely grown. However, where I've seen the most growth is my relationship with Alex. It's truly amazing how not living with someone and being able to have your own space can improve your friendship and brotherhood.

I can really see that my past experiences with my family have definitely influenced my family life with Tiffany. However, luckily, it's shown me some things to improve upon and we've been successful in doing that. I mentioned earlier that a better personal relationship with God wouldn't have magically helped my relationship with my family, but I can see that an almost cooperative relationship with God and my wife is definitely helping my marriage. It's been an interesting journey with my family and it continues to be, but all in all my relationships with them have indeed improved with age.

-Ryan J. Schwimmer

Every minute that goes by tonight is a minute closer to the end of my four-day weekend. Totally lame. It was a great weekend, however. I last updated the day before the Independence Day holiday, which was good. We didn't do much of anything. Tiffany's dad got into town before they left to get him to his new job. July 4 is also my mother-in-law's birthday, so to celebrate that, we went to Zio's. Afterwards we had some good family time at the house, mostly spent with me talking to David about this new job. In case you missed this a few weeks ago, he's driving for a company called Upstaging, and they basically haul tour equipment for musical artists (mostly). So I let him know about the things his company does that I'd like to see, because I'm an opportunist like that; we'll see how that goes. After that, Blake came over and hung out. We played some Rock Band for a while and he left. He just got back from a vacation in the Rockies climbing mountains and such. I saw one picture that he sent me on his cell phone and it was beautiful.

As I'm sitting here trying to think of what I did all weekend, I'm realizing it's a little bit of a blur. We didn't do too much of anything, I guess. Church was okay yesterday. I'm not a big fan of gloom-and-doom sermons, and that's kind of what was going on Sunday morning. Tiff brought up a good point that her old youth pastor brought a newspaper that talked about how "the end times are here" and all of that, and it was from like 1927. Point is, I do believe we may be living in the dying days here, but people have been thinking that for years and years and years. Heck, even the apostles thought that within a few years of Jesus' death. Anyways, the rest of the message was good. Introduced Alex to Ted's after church and he enjoyed it I think.

Our original plans for today were to go to White Water Bay, but sometime over the weekend Tiffany decided to go lay by the pool without wearing sunscreen for about an hour and a half, and she got sunburned pretty badly (go figure), so that plan was nixed. Instead though, we went and saw Wall E. This was absolutely incredible. I'm talking a perfect "10," or whatever maximum amount of stars your rating system will allow. Apparently when I initially told my brother this, he thought I was joking. Let me assure you: I am not joking in the slightest. This movie was a masterpiece, art in film, whatever else you want to call it. I loved it and can't wait to own it. If you haven't seen it, go see it immediately. I'm talking to you, Jenkins.

Randy got into Dallas today, I believe, safely, and I'm excited. It'll be nice to have him and Lindsey so close. I mean, Dallas isn't exactly close, but it's a heck of a lot closer than The HB (Huntington Beach, California, for those of you who are unaware). Tiff and I enjoy the occasional trip down to Dallas anyways so this will be good and just another reason to go down. Plus, Dallas is only like 2.5 hours away from Norman, and God knows Rando's a football fan. Just another person to join us (us being me and Blake, most likely, as Tiff has pretty much retired from going to OU games, at least early in the season). Speaking of football, I'm ready for football season to start up again. It's been too long without football.

Speaking of sports, did everyone get to see the amazing tennis match Sunday between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer? Hopefully you did. Tiffany and I got to see part of it, but unfortunately Cox seems to be having problems with the NBC HD feed, so when we got home from church and lunch, we got to see the third set, but not the fourth or fifth. By the time we realized this and went "Live," Rafa was holding the Cup. What I did see, though, was absolutely incredible and an amazing display of tennis that was at a level the likes of which I haven't seen in a very, very long time.

All the talk about Wimbledon (Oh yeah, Tiff and I had a little Wiimbledon tournament on Saturday, that was part of the day...) made us decide that we're going to start playing tennis. I played a little bit when I was going out with my last girlfriend who played in high school and college. I don't think Tiffany has ever played, but we're excited to get started. It makes us wish we had a tennis court at the apartments. But alas, we don't. That's okay though, we don't have too far to go and it's not too terribly expensive. The expensive part will be getting rackets and balls and such. I like tennis because, unlike golf, you can have fun while playing it without being good right away. Golf takes too much patience. Anyways, that's something we're looking forward to getting started here soon if the wallet allows.

Jenkins came over a few hours ago and brought Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Not impressed in the slightest. Playing on Wii didn't help much, but the songs suck and the charts suck, of course. What do you know, here's a commercial for it. Man, Activision knows how to milk the cash cow. I've seen about eight GH: Aerosmith and GH: On Tour (DS) commercials during WWE Raw tonight. I'm really looking forward to Rock Band 2 though, as most of you already know. There's a leaked list, which is totally unconfirmed and just a rumor, but if it's true it will be absolutely awesome.

What will not be awesome is work tomorrow. I'm really not looking forward to it (that's a shock, right?) but it does indeed pay the bills. Having a day off with Tiff today was really nice. She's going to have Mondays off from now on and be working ten-hour days Tuesday-Friday. It'd be nice if I were able to do the same, but there's no way that would fly at work. Oh well.

I need to catch up on some Word. I haven't read my Bible the past couple of days because I'm a big heathen and everything. Other than not sticking to that, things on the God side of things are going well. I'm enjoying my fellowship with God, going to church Sundays and Wednesdays, and (when I do it) reading.

There's been talks internally about something major happening with this very blog. Stay tuned and I'll let you know if that goes anywhere. I like for people to read my blog and be entertained, at least, and I'd like for more people to read it. This might give more people that opportunity. But this is just in a very early discussion stage, so like I said: Stay tuned. Honestly, the more reaction I get to my blog posts the better it will be, so COMMENT!


Thanks for reading,

-Ryan J. Schwimmer

Man, oh man is the timing great for a long weekend or what? I'm so tired I could eat a horse. Or something. I'm just freaking pooped right now. I haven't slept well all week, my mind's been racing, and I've not so much enjoyed work all week long. Even as I type this I can feel my eyes growing heavy, so this might not be a very long post. Of course, the last time I said that I'm pretty sure I went longer than ever or something. Doubtful that'll happen this time.

So, I've downgraded upgraded to Firefox 2.0.0.15 instead of Firefox 3 (aka bug city). So, Jenkins, I can finally read your comments and stuff. I should also be able to watch embedded video files that aren't flash. If you participated in Download Day, I suggest you do the same thing. People always talk about Windows Vista's problems, from my experience that's nothing compared to Firefox 3's problems.

I know I've mentioned this before, but work has been pretty lame lately. I've been trying to do really well and make sure my numbers are great. Today I actually told my manager "I want a non-phone job so badly, I'm desperate to do anything I can to get noticed by people who are interviewing for promotions." I'm just tired of being on the phone all the time. I can tell that some people are made for it--it just doesn't bother some people--but I'm not one of those.

I don't have a whole lot of plans for the weekend. Tomorrow's been a stupid clustered mess of crap from all sides. We've been invited to go to Choctaw but we're not doing that. The main reason we weren't doing that was because we were planning on taking Tiffany's mom out to dinner considering it's her birthday, but we can't get her to commit to a thing in the world at the moment for some reason. It really frustrated Tiffany today, kinda ruined her (and by association, almost ruined my) day. I know I will probably hang out with Blake this weekend, and maybe Adam. One good thing is that Alex didn't end up going to the lake this weekend. Tiffany and I both had a bad feeling about it. I wrote about this briefly before, but Alex has decided that he's recommitting his life to Christ, but for some reason he was going to start this recommitment on Monday, because he knew he was going to "mess up" and just wanted to start then. Ever since he said that, Tiffany and I both felt that something was up, just a weird feeling about it, and he didn't end up going. This is good. We were praying for him to get sick, but instead he just didn't go. It's less painful this way.

I'm really tired and going to bed. I apologize, just looking this over this is a boring post. But hopefully you at least had a chuckle or something. Comment if you read, and thanks for reading. Have a great holiday tomorrow.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I'm too tired to come up with a clever political-style message saying that I approve this blog.*

*Edit: HOLY COW, HOW COULD I FORGET? HAPPY CANADA DAY, EVERYONE!*

I hope this blog finds everyone doing well. I had a severe lack of comments on my last blog (and it was Jenkins of all people, I guess that's what I get when I call him out)... maybe we can change that this time around? It's cool to know who's reading and everything and I hope you're being entertained as you do. This is something that definitely helps that urge to write I always have. Tiffany mentioned to me after she read one of my recent blogs that I don't have to wait to go back to school to start writing. I realize this, but I just feel like going to school for writing would provide me with more ideas and better avenues to go down regarding that. By the way, I'm trying to convince Tiffany to start a blog (a Myspace is a whole different story), so what you guys should do (And this is so definitely not a ploy to get you to comment...) is comment this post and say that you would read Tiffany's blog and be her Myspace friend, if you would. I know Jenkins will definitely be all over that. I think he has an unhealthy fondness of my wife...

Anywho, work was awful today. After the training I went through the past month, it is literally back-to-back calls all day long. Before there would at least be a little bit in between calls every now and then, but now there is literally no time at all. It's very taxing. Somehow, through all of that, I'm still able to read a decent amount while at work via Biblegateway.com. It also helps that my car is still not working so Tiffany is taking me to work almost an hour early and picking me up a half-hour after my shift too. But today, I read through Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and am currently reading 1 Thessalonians (I think, maybe 2 Thessalonians). I'm really enjoying what I'm reading and I don't want to stop. So, typically, I don't. I'm excited to go to church tomorrow and see what Pastor Marty has in store for the youth. By the way, I'm looking forward to July 14th. J.R.'s Bar-B-Q opens in Moore that day, which means from then on, I'm going to have a new first-place-to-suggest to eat Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons. Word!

So, though I know that most of you don't care, the wrestling show last night was really entertaining. Half of that was because it was just a really good, really unpredictable show. The other half of that has to do with Josh and Sheila, who were sitting right on the hard camera side and were on TV all night. The first fifteen minutes or so were filled with watching out for the "HI RYAN" and "HI TIFFANY" signs, the rest was watching them as they read my text messages. It was funny. But I'm glad they had a good time, because as I mentioned in a previous blog, they were really upset about all the changes that were made.

There's not a whole lot going on right now, I guess. July 4th is in a couple days. At this point I don't really have any plans. It's my mother-in-law's birthday, so we're waiting to see if she is going to be in town so we can take her out to dinner or something, but it looks as though she might be going out of town. Who knows? If she does, we might end up going to Choctaw to Courtney and Cody's house (Tiff's cousins, Nathan's sister and her boyfriend) and have a cookout, swim, and blow stuff up. Blowing stuff up is always good in my book. I also have next Monday off, and if we have enough money we will probably go to White Water Bay. I'm not a terribly huge fan of White Water, but Tiffany definitely is. I like being in the water and stuff, but I don't like the fact that I feel like I have to wear a t-shirt because I'm fat and too self-conscious. I know there are people there that look worse than me, but whatev. It's also expensive, but that's just something I need to get over. Tiff and I are about to spend about as much money to see a movie in a couple weeks (The Dark Knight) at Warren Theatres in Moore. That should be cool. HD Batman... only one word that can describe that: Word. (I should probably just change the title of this post to "Word." But that would involve pressing Shift+Tab, deleting the current title, and then retyping "Word." again.)

I feel like I'm babbling an awful lot, so I'll stop now. Again I hope you all enjoyed the blog. Comment! And especially comment and mention that you'd read Tiffany's blog and be her Myspace friend if she had either or both.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this babbling blog.*

First of all, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who reads this blog. I hope that I at least entertain you slightly for a little while as you read. I know some of you still don't comment all the time, and that's okay I suppose, but I do enjoy hearing your feedback about things. Special thanks goes to Sarah and Max. Sarah even comments without a blogger account which is pretty cool. Hope you're doing well, Sarah. Married yet? Anyways, and Max, who is a pretty "unfreakingbelievable" youth pastor who also served time as the (overall) camp director at One Week 2008: Collide, thanks for reading also. Everyone else can check out Max's blog, but one that he doesn't have posted on blogger due to certain restraints should totally be read. THIS is pretty unfreakingbelievable. Anywho thanks again to everyone who reads. I do appreciate it.

So I'm trucking right along in 2 Corinthians. Tiffany made me read what I was reading tonight aloud to her as we layed in bed. I'm not the best print-to-speecher but she stuck with it for about four chapters before she fell asleep. She's the best wife I've ever had, and I love her. Anyways, I'm still on my streak of reading my Bible every day since camp, even though there's been like two days where I've only read one chapter, but I've made up for it the day after. I'm trying at the very least to read three chapters a day. Most days I've obliterated that, but when it ends up being really late at night or something and I'm really tired, I don't feel badly about only reading three chapters. I even try to read at least a couple chapters at night after I've read a bunch at work in between calls and such. I plan on doing this tomorrow when I go back to work.

It's a little easier going to work tomorrow knowing that it's a short week and I only have to make it through Thursday. A lot of times, that's made work worse because I feel like it should be better and then it's not or something. This time, though, I'm just trying to go into it thinking that it's going to be easier and I'm going to do my best to make that happen. Reading BibleGateway.com and listening to some good music during the day while consciously trying not to let the customers get to me should help. (Maybe if I stop writing this blog and get a good night's sleep, that would help too, eh?) So, hopefully all of that will actually help and I'll have a decent Monday. I'll tell you, it will be the first decent Monday I've had in a very long time. It also helps to know that I also have next Monday off, which is easily going to be one of the busiest days of the year due to everyone being off Friday.

This weekend went by incredibly fast, which stinks terribly. Friday night, Blake came over and we played some Call of Duty 4 and just hung out before he left for Colorado. Yesterday, I can barely even remember what we did. I guess we didn't do much of anything but it just went by fairly quickly. We were originally planning on going to Cheeseburger in Paradise with Stefanie but we ended up not doing that. We kinda just sat around and hung out after grocery shopping. Today, Tiffany's mom's car broke down on the way to work, so after church we waited for the tow truck with her. After that we went curtain shopping. I understand how jealous all of you must be of how exciting that was. Just kidding, it wasn't terrible. We found some good ones and wanted to get them hung up before dinner, but we didn't have enough time. Went to dinner with my mom and Alex, then we had people over to watch some rasslin'. Speaking of my brother, he has made a very tough choice and needs support in prayer. If you could, send one his way.

Church today was great. Pastor Walker was out of town, so Marty took over and spoke. He is incredible. He spoke about how we need to be excited for what God is doing in our lives (and if not in our lives, in other peoples'). I'm definitely excited about what God is doing in my life and can't wait to see what he's going to be doing next. He also spoke on how we should come to church expecting great things (not just in church, for that matter), and I am definitely there. I expect great things to happen because I feel it happening. This is an awesome time in my relationship with God and I love where I am right now. Hallelujah. By the way, I got an answer this weekend as to why I keep feeling compelled to blog about what I'm reading in the Bible and my relationship with God and everything. Funny how those things happen.

I'm going to call it quits for the night. I thank you all again for reading. I love you all and hope you're all doing well. If you read, comment so I can show off how many comments I have to Jenkins and make him jealous. I don't feel bad about writing that, because God knows he's not going to read this far OR comment. Even though I comment almost every one of his posts and read every word. Just kidding, Jenkins. Wait, you're not reading anyways. By the way, once I get some pictures from Camp, I will be posting them. So, I will let you know.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, a peculiar person who was meant to fly, and I approve this blog on the wings of eagles, oh oh oh.*

Keytars rock. There's just no other way around it. I need everyone to just take a deep breath and say it with me: Keytars Rock. ...*Deep Breath*... ...Keytars Rock... See, isn't it good to just admit what's a fact of life? If you haven't heard of them, you should check out Mute Math. If you're feeling really frisky, go to youtube and watch their video for "Typical." Anywho, it's funny how some of these titles work out to the blog I intend to write, even though they're typically just lyrics of songs I might be listening to at the moment.

So, I finished Romans today while I was at work. BibleGateway is the stuff, man. They should pay me for these advertisements. I mean, granted, apparently only like 4 people read this blog, because that's the most comments I've had from different people on a post. Crazies. BUT, that's beside the point. Romans is an excellent book to read to make you feel a little better. It talks about the gifts and promises of salvation, and it's just a good, easy, short read. And apparently this isn't very widespread, but if you're looking for a good way to read the Bible, check out The Message, which is just a translation that's basically like common/modern language. It's excellent for just reading for reading's sake (as opposed to studying). Man, I'm getting really off-track. Maybe the way-too-early-morning blogs aren't as unfocused as the late-night ones. So, I finished reading Romans and am now on my way into 1 Corinthians. Something I found funny almost right off the bat was that in one of my recent blogs I mentioned how infantile I was in regards to this religion I've been a part of my entire life. Then I saw this (The Message translation):

1 Corinthians 3:
1-4--But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast.

D'oh! I know that Paul here (who again, was not a disciple, but was actually a Pharisee on his way to arrest some peeps for being Christian when God blinded him and made him go to one of the very people he was about to arrest to be healed) is talking more about squabbling in the church, which I'm not a part of at the moment, so I'm just slightly joking here. While we're on the subject, here's something that's bugged me for a long time:

1 Corinthians 3:
16-17--You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.

If you really want to take this passage literally, fine. But I don't understand personally how people can see this scripture and use it as a basis for saying that you shouldn't have a tattoo or piercings on your body. Something tells me that God isn't talking about the physical shell being His temple, but more your mind, heart, and soul. I was talking with Blake about this and he made a good point about it making sense if it were about drugs and alcohol abuse because that would mess up the aforementioned things. Sorry, but this is something that has bugged me for a while and I read it and wanted to write about it. Last I checked, this was still my blog so I'll write whateva I want!

My wrists hurt pretty badly right now. Today wasn't that great of a day, by the way. I did get to finish Romans, which is awesome, but work sucked pretty badly. I had an influx of bad customers today, three of which yelled at me, one of them told me I didn't matter, and that he wanted to speak with a Supervisor, because (and I'm not kidding, DIRECT quote) "They must be better than you to be a Supervisor, so I don't want to hear anything more from you, get me to them. You don't matter to me." Great, thanks guy. I promptly put him on hold and waited ten minutes to transfer him. If he's going to be a complete jerk like that, he'll wait. And he did. Anyways, I also got scolded for something slightly silly by a coach that I don't much like in the first place. I hate that so many of these coaches and managers (not mine) talk to me like I'm a kindergartner or something. It would be totally different if I was a new hire and really needed to be shown everything, but when you speak to me like I'm a child, you can just buzz right off. Your'e only in that position because you've been here longer than me and have brown-nosed a whole lot more. /rant

I left the living room light on. That means I'm going to have to get up and go turn it off before I go to bed. Totally lame. I will be ending this here. I know it's crazy that I posted twice in a day. Hopefully I kept it interesting for everyone both times. I speak like more than a handful of people actually read this, which is obviously not true. Whatev. Maybe my audience will grow at a later time or something. Do me a humongous favor and COMMENT! That'd be awesome. Thanks so much for reading, everyone, and I'll most likely see you soon.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this Wizardacious blog.*

I arrived at work pretty early today due to Tiffany having to drop me off on her way to work, so I've decided to go ahead and write a little blog here. I have no idea how this will turn out, as I believe this is my first early-morning blog. It's quite possible it could be as unfocused as my late-night blogs, but we'll have to see. I'm extremely tired this morning for some reason, and my back hurt a little worse than normal as I got out of bed. I think I actually tried to lift myself up when I woke up instead of rolling out of bed (literally) like I normally do, so maybe it doesn't hurt worse than normal, but I just strained it differently or something. I really need to go to a chiropractor, I know.

Tiffany finished Jury Duty yesterday, and then we went to church. Marty had a good message about when it's better to receive than give (or to be served than serve). I've been reading the Word a lot lately and it's still great, of course. I'm still hungry for more, and it keeps me reading more. It also helps that I can get on Bible Gateway at work and read it in between calls or on breaks and lunches and stuff. I'm up to Romans 10 (after starting in Acts just after camp) and I'm really enjoying Romans. I've studied it before, but it was when I was younger so I'm picking up on more. Also, having read Acts, I know who Paul is. I guess I never really knew Paul's story, and always assumed that he was a disciple from the Gospels. Dumb. You know, I read through some of this stuff, and I'm starting to realize how young I am in the knowledge of my faith. It's kind of sad, but I'm fixing it by reading so much and actually retaining what I'm reading, I suppose. In fact, I've read so much and grown so much since camp that I feel like it's been weeks or months. It's weird, because it's not like the past two weeks have gone by incredibly slowly or anything, but I feel very separated (only time-wise) from camp.

Work isn't terrible lately, which is good. We've been taking calls this week, but the past two days (and today) I've been getting a lot of time off the phones still, so that probably has a lot to do with it. However, as I've mentioned before, reading the Bible between calls and listening to some good Christian music (Skillet, anyone?) is helping. It's the small things, I guess.

So, from looking at Facebook (I'll be comfirming this soon), it looks like Ross is participating in Shakespeare in the Park this year. That's pretty cool. I didn't realize that it had already started. Silly me. I need to stop reading the Bible so much and start reading the Gazette... right? No? Okay. Anyways, I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this, so if anyone wants to join, my wife and I will probably be going at some point, so let me know. Thanks for reading, COMMENT, and I'm sure I'll see you soon. **By the way, really quickly, gotta drop a shoutout (that's what these young 'uns call 'em these here days) to Alex's New Blog.** Speaking of Alex, you mentioned while we were at Mom's that you read about something in my blog, which means you read, but you're not commenting. Unacceptable. Comment, loser.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this Blog Morning America.*