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.*

So, today I really don't know what to write about. I just wanted to write, so I'm just going to let this take me where it takes me.

I wish I was in school. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I really wish there was a way for that to happen. I'm sure it will eventually, so I'm not worried about it or anything. I've been wanting to have some sort of writing degree for a long time. You know, a lot of people say that if you take a year off after high school before starting college, you'll put it off and never end up going. I think that would have been a good plan for me. I don't think that right out of high school I was really at the maturity level to carry myself through school. I think that, for some people, being forced to work full time for a year, at least, would make people appreciate school more. Then again, it would probably only work with people who hate their job.

I was planning on using part of the $500,000 I won tonight to go back to school, but alas I did not win Mr. McMahon's money. Oh well. I would say there's always next week, but due to his unforeseen injuries, they're suspending the sweepstakes. Which leads me to think, what would I do with $500,000? After tithing, I would pay off all my debt, first of all. Fairly basic stuff here. I would buy a house. Not a very big house at all, but big enough to be comfortable and fix it up the way I want it. Then I'd get myself and Tiffany new cars. Again, not big flashy new cars, but just good ones. After that I'd use the money to go back to school, maybe while taking less hours at work or something. What would you do?

Gosh, I wish I had some good ideas for fiction. I can just feel a story inside of me but I can't put words or mental pictures or thoughts, for that matter, to it. A few years ago I made up a character that I really like, and have always wanted to write a story about him, but it never really came to fruition. It's a hokey fantasy/action story though (heavily inspired by Final Fantasy games), and I don't think that's what's stirring inside of me. Obviously, I'm not sure what it is or I would start writing it. I've always wanted to be an author or a screenwriter or something. Screenwriter might be more like it, but I have no idea how to go about writing a screenplay. Another reason I'd like to be back in school. I messed up so bad that semester at OU; I just straight up wasn't ready for college. I think I'd really excel at it now, considering I had the time to concentrate and work at it and stuff. I wish they offered more degrees and courses online. Unfortunately, there aren't many specialty (if it's even specialty) degrees that are offered online. Meh, plus all of this would be put off until Tiffany could finish school anyways, because she's super close to finishing and I know it would be important to her to do so. Anywho, I'll stop whining about school.

I read the Bible and listened to some Christian music while at work today, and I honestly think it helped my day a little bit. I find I'm a very little bit more patient with customers and don't let things bother me as much. I've only tried it today, so we'll see how it works in the future. Tomorrow we start taking Homeowners calls in the classroom, so the off-the-phones training is pretty much over. Totally lame. Oh well, it was very nice while it lasted, even though I had to take a few days off and I wouldn't have even been on the phones at all those days. Obviously I'm not complaining because I had an excellent time at camp, but I'm sure you get my drift. There have been a couple job openings at work (I think I mentioned this previously), but unfortunately I don't believe I'm eligible for them until I've been with the Swing Team for a year (which would be December 1). One of the postings, and being in class these past few weeks, have made me think that I might like a position in the training department. That would be pretty cool. I don't know, I just hope things start looking up at my job.

I finished Acts today while at work and am moving on to Romans starting tomorrow. Reading my Bible every day has been awesome still, and I'm looking forward to doing it more in the coming days, weeks, months, etc. Also, I'm really digging Skillet, and they're coming to Tulsa in August and Tiffany and I will definitely be there. Tickets go on sale this Saturday. If you're interested in going, let me know! Speaking of tickets, I can honestly say I'm glad that we didn't get tickets to WWE Raw coming up next Monday. In case you're a loser and aren't aware, they had a draft today, and a ton of people left Raw that I really would have wanted to see. So, that was lame. I feel a little bad for Josh and Sheila, as they're still going and are now in the same boat. Josh even said he's wanting to sell his tickets now.

I think I'm tired enough to sleep now, so I'm going to be ending this. Thanks for reading. COMMENT, and I will see you soon.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this whispers-in-the-dark blog.*

Just so we clear the air, Jenkins' post-off isn't actually going to have an impact on my blog at all. I'm not going to bore you all (just kidding, Jenkins) with every little detail of my day, mainly because I'm not at my computer all the time.

Today was a good day, for the most part. Tiffany's still pretty sick, which sucks of course. And not just for selfish reasons (i.e. I'm sleeping on the couch for the second night in a row to give her some space and also to try to get a decent night's sleep). I feel bad because she's truly not feeling well and it sucks to see her in pain and miserable like this. It happens though, and of course it's not something that I could have helped her avoid or anything, it just happens. The only thing I can do is pray that she gets better soon. I'm confident she will start feeling better tomorrow, so we'll see how that turns out.

*Fair warning* I'm starting to feel more and more tired as I type this, so if I ramble or can't focus on one thought, I apologize.

I talked with my mom today on the phone and asked if she was going to come to church on Sunday. She had been having some problems with not having gas to get to church or money to buy it, so I figured that if she was still in that situation, Tiffany and I could just pick her up beforehand so she could still come. What's really funny is that she said that she didn't come last week because she knew we were having a guest speaker, and she's not a big fan of guest speakers because at our old church, she never got much out of the sermons or anything from the guests. Well, our guest Sunday was Bishop Frank Tunstall, who seriously gave one of the best sermons I have ever heard. It was Father's Day, so he gave the Bible's job description of a father, taught through the various names of God in Hebrew. It was outstanding. She seemed upset that she missed it. Hopefully she will be able to come to church this Sunday though.

Tiffany's dad got a new job! In case you weren't aware, her dad is an over-the-road (as apposed to under-the-road, or over-the-water) truck driver, currently in the owner/operator business. Well, that has brought on lots of troubles for the past few years, so he applied for a new job with a company whose name escapes me right now. I might think of it in a bit. Basically, they drive the trucks for big concert series across the country. This summer, for instance, they are driving the trucks for Radiohead, the Jonas Brothers, Kenny Chesney, and others. Well, we found out today that he indeed got the job, which is awesome. He's very excited for it and we all are as well.

Now, if I could just do something about my job. We're basically finished with Homeowners training at work, which is good because it's yet another thing I can put on my resume and something else that helps me along developmentally, however it also means the end of my vacation from the phones. If you'll recall, the main problem I'm having with work is just having to be on the phones nonstop for eight hours, and it's just driving me crazy. I have officially been in Swing for over six months now, which I believe makes me eligible to apply for other jobs within the company. A rotational internship in the training department just opened up and I might apply for that. I have little to no chance of even getting an interview (unless they interview every candidate, which often happens), because I'm not as tenured or involved as some others who will undoubtedly apply. However, there is most likely a very limited pool of employees that they can choose from, as the training department needs people who are trained or have spent time in both automobile and homeowners sales AND service, which leaves Swing (20 people total), and one other department that's larger, but still not the whole floor or anything. So anyways, I might apply for that.

A big road block I've been running into lately is that a lot of good jobs within my company and elsewhere are requiring college degrees. A lot of times they'll say something like "College Degree or experience equivalent," which I'm close to. A college degree is typically 4-5 years of school, and I've been with the company almost 3. So, it would be great if I could land a non-phone job that requires that, however most of the jobs that I'm wanting don't give that "or experience equivalent" option. So, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about everything, but I don't know how much longer I can hold out being on the stupid phones. I know that right now I'm getting worked up about nothing because it's the weekend and I haven't even been on the phones more than a day at a time in almost a month. I just really wish that we had a way that Tiffany and I could go back to school and get our degrees. It would make things much easier and better, at least in my eyes. Tiffany's very happy with her job, although I know she'd be very happy with a degree also, even if she didn't even get a different job. Enough of that, I suppose.

The people upstairs are being incredibly obnoxious right now. I've heard their sliding glass door open and close four or five times, people being loud, running up and down the stairs outside, and I'm not sure if it's them, but someone keeps going in and out of the pool area. If you've ever lived in an apartment with a pool area, you know how loud those stupid gates are. I don't get how people don't get that it's two o'clock in the freaking morning and some people are trying to sleep (obviously not me, but my sick wife). It wouldn't be terrible except here in just a few minutes it will be me trying to sleep, not to mention that when they're running up and down the stairs it drives Sam crazy and he barks. Not good for the sleeping beast beauty.

By the way, as soon as some pictures/video from camp are available, I will let you know and either post them here or link to them. I'm looking forward to it. I know there are some good pictures and at least a couple good videos that I want to share. I think that's going to be all for me tonight. Hopefully the upstairs neighbors will stop being retarded and realize that it's bedtime for us old folks. COMMENT and thanks for reading. I will see you all soon.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this rambling, tired, and unfocused blog.*

Sorry it's been a few days since I've updated. I actually had a post written out either last night or the night before but it was short and totally pointless and I didn't like it so I didn't post it. I (obviously) normally blog late at night, and my late nights have been taken up with reading my Bible lately. God has really put a thirst in my soul for more of Him recently, and it's been awesome. I've been reading my Bible, and when I finish I just want to do it more. But then I fall asleep, so I stop for the day. I read ten chapters of Acts today while at work. After you're done reading this post, you should check out www.biblegateway.com, it's a great site. Another area where it's really affected me that I didn't expect is my music. I've been able to listen to my iPod while in training at work, and it's funny because when I put all of my songs on shuffle, there are very few non-Christian songs that I'm actually able to make it all the way to the end to. I've been listening to a lot of Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Skillet, and Jeremy Camp, and I've been adding more to my collection. I added some Newsboys today, for instance.

I don't know if it's just because I'm still on some sort of spiritual high from camp or what, but whatever it is, my prayers and efforts to keep the excitement that I got at camp have definitely worked. God has definitely answered my prayers on that so far and helped me along. I went to church last night by myself (Tiffany's pretty sick. Horribly sore throat and allergy issues and stuff), and that was cool. I talked to Marty (the Youth Pastor) about Tiffany and I being more involved with the youth group again. I'm not sure if I've blogged about this before and am too tired and lazy to look, so I'll just explain shortly. About 14-15 months ago, we were approached with the opportunity to be "Youth Sponsors," basically assigned chaperones and helpers and stuff with Youth, and we agreed to do it. However, it was about that time that Tiffany went to camp last year and had some issues with some things, and we disappeared from the church for about five or six months. So we didn't really get much into it.

Well, Marty's awesome (I talked about how he told us that God basically told him to volunteer us for the camp 'job') and when I mentioned helping out to him, he didn't even hesitate and was like "Absolutely, that'd be awesome. That's still open, offer's still there, so yes, absolutely." Marty's wife Cherie also said it was awesome, so we're in business. Anyways, had a great time at church. I sat in with the Youth service, and Marty had two short but great lessons. Afterwards I stuck around and talked with some of the Youth and Marty and Chris and Jonna (who are getting Married in August, Chris is the Assistant Youth Pastor, they're all good people). We went to Smoke Shack BBQ for dinner and that's when I talked more with Marty and Cherie about being youth sponsors. I also heard that we got RAVE reviews from the kids at camp. They said that the activities were great both weeks at camp, but they really liked how we bonded with the kids (they being the kids and the rest of the staff) better than the first couple. I'm glad the kids enjoyed it because that's what really matters.

Anywho, only one more day of the work week, so that shouldn't be too horrible. It's training, no phones, so that's always a plus. [By the way, right at this second my dog is sitting by the door staring at me, just waiting in agony for me to take him outside.] Nathan got hired today at work and filled out his paperwork, so that's pretty cool. He has also asked me to be the Best Man at his wedding. This is a cool thing, however I did hesitate a little because Ashley doesn't really know/like me, so I'm not sure if I'm the best pick for that. I'm going to talk with him about it a little bit more.

Okay kiddos, that'll be all for me tonight. Thanks for reading, I'm sure I will see you all later. COMMENT!

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this PHENOMENAL blog.* (Sorry, watching TNA and A.J. Styles is all over the place. Boo, now he's in the Ankle Lock. Lame. Bye!)

So, OneWeek '08: Collide is over. Tiffany and I are in bed as I type this. She's reading the book that we bought my dad for Father's Day before we have to give it to him tomorrow (isn't she awesome?), and I'm just sitting here typing this. We couldn't have done this at camp. We were sleeping double in a double, and it wasn't working very well. So we're back to our very comfortable King, and couldn't be happier about that. Collide being over is a very bittersweet thing. It's been one of the best experiences I've had in a very long time (if not ever), but it was awfully exhausting. I can barely walk as it is. My legs are numb just above my knees for some reason. My calves are so tight, it takes me about two or three minutes to navigate our 1,000 square foot apartment. My back is so tired that I asked Tiffany for a back rub (which is a big deal, because she always whines and pouts and doesn't want to do it), and I accepted laying down at the foot of the couch while she rubbed my back with her heels.

So, those are the downsides of camp, and the reasons that we're glad to be back. However, the experience with God to just be away from most of every day life for a few days and focus everything on Him (and getting the kids to focus on Him) was incredible. I again appreciate all of the encouraging and kind comments that have been left on these last few posts, thanks so much for reading them.

Anyways, the few hours we did spend at camp this morning went fairly well. It was basically just packing up and getting everything cleaned before we left. We also gave out awards to our outstanding athletes, which went very well. We were also given a check for our work (work? lol), which is very nice. However, we honestly didn't want anything. We volunteered (no matter how much pressure we were under to do so...), and didn't expect anything. We were told that there was no use in arguing over it, so we didn't, but we might have expected enough to take us to dinner or something, but we were blessed with a lot more than that. So we were unpleasantly surprised by that.

In case anyone is lead to this blog by way of someone else from camp and is reading, I just want to thank everyone involved for an awesome experience.

After we got back, we ate some linner (not a typo) and came home. Or, I came home while Tiffany went to get a hair cut. It's very cute, by the way. Anywho, I just basically sat around for a while and unpacked, started some laundry, and tried to get caught up on some things. My car tried to die on me while I was out fixing my dad's computer, but I ended up getting it home and everything. So, now starts the struggle of trying to keep the flame that was ignited by a few days at camp. I'm going to start now by reading some Word, as they say. COMMENT, and thanks for reading everyone.

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

The first thing I want to do with this blog entry is say thank you to those of you who have commented on my past couple entries. You guys are awesome and I love you. Yesterday was trying for me, but today was incredible. The only really bad thing to report is that one of the kids broke their shoulder going down the sleepy slide (sorry, that's our Camp Director Max coming out... he's from Argentina) slip-n-slide. Unfortunately this is the second injury in as many days for us, but Trevor's a tough kid aside from screaming like a little girl when he's hurt... (If for some crazy reason you're reading this Trevor, I'm just messing with you.)

So today was supposed to be the easy day for us, as it was mud day. We had a big mud pit that was set up for volleyball and tug of war, and we also had a slip-n-slide set up and some water balloons and all this stuff. Unfortunately, it was only easy for me. Tiffany had a rough time as she was the one running the slip-n-slide and trying to keep kids out of the water balloons when Trevor got hurt. I, on the other hand, was overseeing the mud pit. Man, it was so much fun. The kids were having a blast once we got it all started. Once the tug of war was over and we started doing mud volleyball, I just manned the hose and sprayed people off. It was twisted, yet fun.

Anyways, service tonight was amazing. Marty was preaching on how to keep this fire that the kids have caught from camp and everything. It's really funny how things work. Honestly, so much has happened since the service that I don't remember what exactly was said, but near the beginning of service Marty mentioned something that completed related to me and my struggles yesterday. Later on, I was being prayed over by Chris, the assistant youth pastor from my church, and he prayed for strength for me against attacks. It's just amazing, awesome stuff that happens in prayer.

One weird thing that happened was that I was prayed over by someone and "prophesied" over by one of the campers. Tiffany warned me that you do have to make sure you know who is praying over you and make sure that it lines up with what God has told you, because not everyone actually does know what they're talking about. It could be that they're mistaken in their interpretation of what God is telling them or they're just making it up, I guess. Anyways, I was told that within a year, my wife and I would be in a Children's ministry. Hmmm. Definitely not seeing that one coming. Tiffany knows for a fact that she's not called to Children's Ministry, and I've felt for a long time that I've been called to Youth Ministry.

After service, Tiffany and I sat in the board room with Marty, Cherie, and Elizabeth (who does not go to our church) and sat and talked and joked around and had a lot of fun. Man, camp is really ending on a high note. I am going to find myself praying that these kids do keep the fire that they caught here this week, because I know how hard it is to keep (as Blake mentioned in one of his comments), especially when you know the enemy is going to be coming after you with something fierce. And as selfish as this may sound, I'm going to be praying that I keep the fire that I've caught here at camp, because I am totally on fire right now and I want to keep it. But again, I know how hard it's going to be to NOT fall back into the routine I was in at home. I know that it's going to be very hard to try to remember to read my Bible every single day instead of just every now and then and stuff. And also I know how hard it's going to be because there will be more attacks. But I truly believe that being prayed over today for strength against those attacks is going to help with that.

Regardless, service was awesome, the kids had fun today, and it's been great here at camp. Tiffany and I (and most of the other staff members) are ready to go home (that's an understatement). Sleeping in a full size bed when you're used to a king isn't fun. Sleeping with only a couple sheets isn't fun when your wife complains and complains and complains about being cold all the time (she's seriously doing this as I type). I swear she wakes up in the middle of the night and I can be out of the covers and sweating like a pig, and she's fully covered and she'll shiver and whine about how cold it is. I love my wife. Anyways, I'm going to be happy to not have to go to bed with the thought of, "Am I going to be able to walk tomorrow?" My feet hurt really bad. I don't think I broke my toe, by the way, but there's a very peculiar bruise on the top of it. I might have it checked out later. My back's still killing me, of course, and obviously I'm very exhausted.

It's bed time (1:18 am) so I'm going to sleep now. Tomorrow we will be handing out awards to the teams and people that did the best in our activities, and then cleaning up and getting home! Tiffany's excited to see our dogs and cat. I guess I am too, but it has been nice not having to take them out all the time. Again, thank you all for reading and for commenting on my awesome/lame blogs and being so kind and encouraging. Again I love you all and COMMENT this one too!

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this product-of-too-little-sleep-the-past-few-days blog.*

Just a fair warning on this: As you might guess by the title (which is actually almost never conducive of what the post is going to be about, as most of the time I use a random lyric from a song or a song title), this post is going to be a bit different from the past couple. We'll start at the beginning.

So I wake up this morning and my back is killing me. It's hurting in places it's never hurt before, my feet are still pretty sore, but I decide that I'm going to do my best to not focus on that. And it worked, for the most part. My feet didn't hurt until we were done with activities, and my back always hurts a little bit in certain situations, so that's fine. This morning, Tiffany and I had an AWESOME icebreaker. We made two of the kids first bob for 5 gummy worms in baked beans. Man, that was nasty, nasty stuff. To make it even worse better, as soon as they had their 5 gummy worms, they had to bob for marshmallows in flour. So, the result was a floury-barbecue-NASTY paste on their face. God, it was awesome.

We didn't have as much prep work to do (aside from blow up 150 balloons and tie string to them all) as we did yesterday, so today went a little smoother, I think. Something interesting that ended up happening was that around 5:00 or so, things started to fall apart a little bit. I'm not exactly sure what was happening elsewhere in the camp, but I know that a girl named Miranda was hurt playing Spoon Hockey. And seriously, it couldn't have happened to a nicer girl. If all of these kids were like Miranda, Tiffany and I would have an easy time. So, she gets hurt, and she starts complaining that she can't go back and play more spoon hockey to help her team. I mean, this girl can't walk. We found out later that she most likely pulled or tore a muscle or ligament or tendon or something in her leg. Even more unfortunate than all of that is the fact that she won't be coming back. I know that's gotta be devastating for her, because when she first got hurt I guess the nurse made her call her mom, and all she was saying was "DON'T COME GET ME, MOM, OKAY?" over and over. I'm devastated for her, I really am. It was to a point when Tiffany told me to stop worrying about it and I just told her, "Let me feel bad for the girl please." I don't know how to explain it. So I'm not going to try. I'm too tired and too worn out and exhausted to try.

So that was the first thing that happened, and again apparently some other stuff was happening around the camp. It was obvious to Max that we were being attacked spiritually and we needed to be ready. So, before service he has us all pray for protection and such from attacks from the enemy. Apparently I wasn't quite ready.

In case you aren't aware, I go to a "Spirit-Filled" church. This is also called "Pentecostal" and other things. Basically it's the idea that people speak in tongues to pray to God. Again, too tired, exhausted, worn out, etc to explain more at this point (If you have questions about anything let me know later and I'll be comfortably uncomfortable explaining it to you). It's funny because when Tiffany and I first started dating, I was very weirded out by the whole speaking in tongues thing and all that. Anywho, I've been praying for a while to receive this spiritual gift, because lately (as I stated a couple blog entries ago), I've had moments where I am feeling led to pray for someone but I don't know what to pray for or who it is. Praying in tongues can do some of that work for you, and I feel as though this is something I want and desire as 1 Corinthians 12 or 14 or something says you should do for spiritual gifts. Anyways, I'm digressing way too much. So service starts, and we do praise & worship, and Marty shares that God is doing some work here and that if the campers have that desire for the gift of speaking in tongues and wanted to receive it, they needed to come forward and everything. So a lot of them did, and all the while I'm thinking to myself "This is all about the kids, there's no way I'm going up there and taking this away from them at all."

Well, I don't know if that decision was a good or a bad decision (or both), because what started right then as many of the campers worshiped at the front of the sanctuary was one of the most horrible things I've encountered spiritually. I thought to myself, "I don't need to go up there, I will do as Pastor Marty instructs but just do this from my seat." So I lifted my hands, I used my tongue, I praised and I praised and I praised and I praised. I did this for a long time and then all of a sudden I started feeling like I needed to cry. So, some tears come out (man, I'm really delving into this comfortably uncomfortable thing), and as I'm standing there, my back, which is pretty stiff and hurting to the point where it's affecting me walking, starts hurting even worse than it did. I would say not quite double the pain but something close. Then, it moved to my feet. (BTW, I slipped today and possibly broke my toe. I really don't think so, but Tiffany thinks I should get it checked out). My feet started hurting twice as bad as they were. And after this, I start getting a headache (which I hadn't had all day). This all hits me pretty much at once. I'm praying now that God would help me with this pain and stop it. Didn't happen at this point, and that is when my emotions really started being attacked.

All of a sudden, I'm looking around, and I'm having this desire to pray for people, however what is being given and received and everything is all about receiving what is called the "baptism of the Holy Spirit." Which, I haven't received. I wasn't going to go in there and ruin that. (Maybe this is yet another attack.) Then I kept feeling this desire to go pray for people and everything, and I knew that I couldn't do it. I felt worthless. I start basically sobbing in my seat. There is awesome stuff happening at the altar and instead of praising God for what he is doing, I have my head in my hands crying like a little girl and actually probably worse. So I sit there like this, crying out to God to make it stop. At this point I realized that I was being attacked by the enemy, because there's no way this happens to me if it wasn't. I realized that the devil is trying to not only cripple me physically but emotionally as well. This time is normally when a prayer would be said, and things would start coming back to normal. Well, this didn't happen for me.

It kept getting worse. And worse. I kept sobbing in my chair, and I am sitting here reminding the devil very sternly that he can't touch me because I'm God's property and in Jesus' name and all this... anyways, I come to the conclusion that this wouldn't be happening if I didn't feel worthless. And I wouldn't feel worthless if I had the spiritual gift of praying in tongues. So I open my Bible to 1 Corinthians and I start reading. I pray for God to show me how it works. So I read there in my chair, still crying, and I'm not getting much of anywhere. I start crying out that "I know it's in here! I know the answer is in here, God! Tell me where it is, show me and let me receive this." I read everywhere my flipping through the Bible led me, but I wasn't finding the answer I was looking for. Now I'm getting frustrated, and we're at a whole other issue here.

That's about as much detail as I'm going into today. Basically what happened was that I was totally bombarded by attacks from the enemy and for some reason I couldn't fend them off. Tiffany came up to me later and asked if I was okay, and instead of shrugging it off (which, ask her, I do most of the time when I'm asked that question), I just looked at her and said, "No, not really."

I've come out of that negative and depressed spirit for the most part since then, and hopefully I can stay out of it from here on out. Since all of this happened though, I've been completely worn out, exhausted, do I really need to type all of the adjectives again? I'm very tired and I need some sleep in order to be energized for tomorrow. Mud Games! Here's hoping and praying for no pain.

Anyways, thank you all for reading. Please understand that these entries have been incredibly hard for me to share, and I hope that you all enjoy them. I'm not used to this at all, but slowly but surely I'm working on breaking through my comfort zone. Blah Blah Blah, COMMENT! and I'll see you soon

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

I can honestly say, without much hesitation, that the decision to come to camp to direct activities with Tiffany is one of the best I've made in a long time. Not everything has gone perfectly, but this has been such an incredible experience in the short time that I've been here. I have so much to complain about right now, as I'm tired, my allergies are driving me crazy, I still have a headache (we're going on three days straight now), my back is hurting worse than it has ever hurt (which is pretty darn badly), and my feet hurt worse than they've ever hurt (also pretty darn badly). Seriously though, my feet and back are in constant pain. Right now, my feet hurt so badly that I'd almost rather just chop them off. I'm pretty sure it would hurt less, but then I'd be less useful and stuff, so I'll just keep 'em. Anyways, all that to complain about but I'm honestly not too worried about any of those things. God has done some incredible things for the kids at this camp, and through those incredible things with the kids, has done incredible things for me.

What I'm about to say is going to possibly make some people feel uncomfortable, but I'm not too worried about that at the moment. There is some serious spiritual stuff going on here. Some (including myself) call it Spiritual Warfare. I truly believe that the pain that is running rampant throughout my body right now is an attack from the enemy (yes, I'm talking about Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, whatever you want to call him). I believe that right now he's making me dizzy because he doesn't want me to write about my experiences at camp and wants me to go to bed where he can get me more there. But it's not just me that this is happening to. Marty, who is doing speaking duties at this camp, has been struggling with a throat problem all week. And that's just two of us. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that these kids are going through. I haven't talked to any of them about it, but there's just something that tells me that they're going through so much more than just pain or a sore throat. These kids are here for a reason, plain and simple, and that is for healing. Again, not just physical healing (which is possible in some cases), but mostly spiritual healing.

When Marty gave his testimony last night, he mentioned that at one point he was being abused sexually. That first night he called people to the altar who have something that's holding them back from their relationship with God, whether it be physical, sexual, verbal abuse, or whatever else. Well, a lot of focus was put on the abuse part of that, and something incredible happened today. The campers have what are called "Breakout Sessions," which is basically kind of like Sunday School. Well, we had guest speakers today, and there are two classes. The first class, Senior High, had Pastor Walker from our church, CLF. The second class had a lady whose name I cannot remember at the moment. Max, the Camp Director, came in to the board room where Tiffany and I were working on some of the activities, and other counselors were in there, and said that it's really amazing, but Pastor Walker and ________ (whatever her name was, I think it started with an E) were preaching about the same exact thing: Abuse.

Now, Marty did not tell either one of the Breakout Sessions speakers that he was going to be talking about that a lot in his testimony the first night. They both came to these sessions with their own lesson in mind, and both of them had to do with abuse. How incredible is that? I look at that and I see that it's undeniable that God is going to be delivering some of these people. I prayed really hard for a lot of people at tonight's service (which I'll get into in a moment) just that they could have the strength to break through the chains that were holding them down from God and be free from that.

The service tonight was great. Marty talked about stepping out of your comfort zone and ministering to other people and things like that. It was definitely a good message. I am definitely guilty of not ministering and not witnessing and being way too comfortable in Christianity (as opposed to being uncomfortable and sharing it with others). However, I thought it was funny that he was preaching that to the kids considering it is incredibly uncomfortable for me to be writing about my faith and all of that in my blog, especially when I know that at least a couple people who read my blog aren't Christians or, if they are, it's just something that we don't talk about a whole lot. And honestly, if I hadn't been charged to write a blog in detail about camp while I was gone by Christian, I would probably still be sitting in my "E-Z Chair" and sitting comfy.

It was just such an incredible day, and an incredible night. I'm talking about all of this and I haven't even talked about what Tiffany and I did all day. We ran around like chickens with our collective head cut off making sure everything was ready. Also, with me again stepping out of my comfort zone, I had to stand up on stage and direct almost 100 people and make it fun for them and everything. Not exactly the most comfortable I've ever been in my entire life. Anyways, I'm not going to write too much more as it's almost 1 :00 am and I'm completely exhausted and have yet another big day going on tomorrow.

Thank you all so much for reading (those of you who made it this far). Comment, and I'm sure I'll see you soon. God bless.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, not Ryan Jay Schwimmer, and I approve this holy-rolling blog.*

Day One here at One Week 2008-Collide. It was a pretty good day that just got better and better as it went, once we were out here. If I were a little less tired, this would be where I would compare it to a movie that was just okay but with an awesome ending. I'm still trying to think of something, so if I do as I continue to type this blog entry, I will let you know. By the way, before I get into anything specific, I am currently typing this at 12:56 AM 6/11/2008 in good ol' Notepad. I'm not sure if I will actually be able to post this on to Blogger. We do indeed have Wireless internet, however it seems to go in and out.

Starting this out like a normal blog entry, I had a really hard time sleeping last night. Tiffany says it's because I was excited for camp, but I beg to differ. You see, I was (and am) still very excited for camp, however I believe it was the freaking splitting headache I had all night that woke me up at 4:00 am and made me want to die. Okay, so it wasn't that serious, but it did irritate the crap out of me and hurt really badly. So, I'm very tired, especially after an equally tiring day at work, which was full of monotony and headaches. Yes, by the way, I did take medicine, but for some reason it didn't work too well. Caveat: I'm dozing in and out in the recliner in our room at camp as I type this, so if the last part of this post is something like hhfasjklkvjaikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, you'll know what happened.

So we get off work and head to camp. We're running a little late, and if any of you know Tiffany or myself, that drives us crazy. But we actually get here right on time for a counselors/staff meeting.

Okay, sorry again for being totally and completely all over the place, but I wanted to put this in here. I know that my faith isn't something that I go into detail about very often, but I'm not letting anything hold me back here. If you respect or like me any less for what I'm writing or my views, that's your problem and maybe we should talk about it, but honestly if you fall into this category you should just stop reading now and check back on my blog entry after I get back from camp or something. Anywho, now that that's out of the way...

The meeting was cool. One thing I thought was very cool was that we started out by praying. Now, this isn't necessarily something crazy, but we all stood up and joined hands and took turns praying. It went on for a while, but a lot of great things were prayed about and for. The meeting, with the prayer and everything, really made me realize how committed everyone here is to make this camp something special, and how it's all for God first, and the kids second. They mentioned how the past week (the first camp) had some really cool things going on. In a camp where there were a little over 100 kids, they had 30 people give their lives to God. How awesome is that? That is an incredible number of lives that have been changed just due to camp and all of the awesome speakers and staff.

So after the staff meeting was dinner, which was surprisingly good. After the meal was service. What a way to start camp. Pastor Marty (the youth pastor from Tiffany and I's church, Christian Life Fellowship) is the speaker for this camp, and he gave a little bit of his testimony. Before that was Praise & Worship led by Marty's cousin Zac(k? h? -?), who rocked the party. Marty has gone through some crazy things in his life, and God spoke through him in a very special way today. He talked about how even though he went through all of these crazy stupid things in his life, if it weren't for some of those things he wouldn't be here today. He gave the opportunity for the kids to come up to the alter if they have anything holding them back from getting help, such as abuse, drug/alcohol problems, etc, and a shocking number (15-20, I'd say) stood at the altar while Marty, his wife Cherie, and a ton of other counselors and other kids prayed over them. It was an incredible experience. I know of at least one person who gave their life to God, and just seeing that is an awesome thing. This isn't the first time I've seen that happen or been present, but every time it happens it's a special thing, obviously.

To be completely honest, I was having a little bit of an internal problem myself. I had felt a stirring (deep within me... could it be my time has come....anyway, I'll stop typing song lyrics maybe) all night in my spirit that something incredible was going to happen. When Marty called the kids to the altar, I felt like God was really calling me to pray for someone in particular, but for the life of me I could not tell who it was or what I was supposed to pray for. It was killing me. I went up and started praying for everyone at first, but then I could tell that there was someone specific up there I was supposed to pray for. Then I started thinking that even if I could figure out who it was, I didn't know what I was supposed to pray for. So after a while of pacing back and forth and praying for God to show me who it was and tell me what to pray for, I started getting frustrated. Then I hated that feeling, but that's beside the point. Now, to set the record straight, I'm not saying I was frustrated at God but frustrated at myself for not being able to tell who it was. I'm sure I was being told, I just didn't know how to interpret it or something. I don't know, it bugged me for a while, but then, like Tiffany said, sometimes you just gotta pray, so I did, and it stopped bugging me.

Man, that service was really something else. Marty took something like an hour or more after service was over to pray specifically for/with every single kid who went up to the altar. And the longer this happened, more kids started showing up at the altar to be prayed for. It was just a really cool experience, something that I can tell is going to help me grow as a Chrstian in the future. I can really tell that God is doing something special with this group of people (not just the kids and not just the staff bug everyone). It's an amazing thing to be a part of, and I can't wait to tell you all about it as it happens. I'm going to bed now as I am DEAD tired and have to wake up early in the morning to get ready for some awesome activities. Thanks so much for reading, especially if you made it this far in this retardedly unfocused entry. And thanks to Christian for inspiring me to blog about camp in detail. I hope you all have enjoyed and learned or found something that you'll take with you or something. I don't know what I'm trying to say. It's becoming more and more evident that it's bedtime. COMMENT and we'll be home soon.

*My name is Ryan J. Schwimmer, and myself and the rest of Schwimmerville approve this spectacular blog entry.*

So, this may well be the last blog I write for a few days, as tomorrow Tiffany and I will be heading out to camp. We're both very excited and nervous for it (as I've said a few times before). I think it's going to be a great experience and a fun time. If there is wireless internet, I'm planning on writing a blog every night that I'm there talking about the events of that day and such. If there isn't, I'm still planning on writing those entries, and will post them all when I get back on Saturday. This is just my plan, however, so we'll see if it actually comes to fruition.

Anyways, I'm watching Raw right now, waiting for Vince McMahon to call and give me some money. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will soon. When I do, though, the answer is "No, I won't buy you [insert stupid thing here]." Daddy needs a new pair of shoes. Seriously. My wonderful Born boots are cracked in both soles, so badly to where when I walk through wet grass my socks get soaked. Oh well.

Work sucked today, as I was on the phone all day. It was definitely lame, but I'm looking forward to training tomorrow. And also tomorrow, big Nate Dizawg!!! (exactly as I have him in my phone) has an interview at the Hartford. So we're going to go to lunch after his interview. That will be cool.

Car update, as if any of you care: I can't remember and am too lazy to look at what I wrote last time, but we messed with some wires and taped them down and the car has been running okay since then. Hopefully we can fix this stupid thing soon and get it all taken care of. Or better yet, Vince can call me and give me enough money to buy a new car or two.

I'm going to keep this short as I need to get to bed early. COMMENT and thanks for reading. Will see you all soon.

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

Tiffany's playing Mario Kart Wii again, so I figured I'd just write a blog while she's doing so. I've had a pretty big headache all day and it's still continuing, which sucks of course. Honestly though I'm getting used to it again. I don't know what the deal is. I have been using a really old crappy CRT monitor at work while in training, whereas normally I would have a newer LCD screen, so maybe that has something to do with it.

So, my car worked for a few days since Randy worked on it, and today, after picking the dogs up from the mom-in-law's (where Randy is located), it died on me. Luckily, I was able to start it after a few tries, back it up and turn around, and then it died again. A few tries later, it started again and I got it down the street and started to turn the corner. Luckily, if I could make it over the hill, it was all downhill to where Randy was. About ten tries later to start the car it finally did, so I hit the gas and got up to about 35 mph with about a quarter mile to go and then it died again. Luckily though, I was able to coast into the driveway. We're now thinking it has to do with the wires that are connected to the part mentioned in an earlier post, so he messed with them and it started right back up and ran. He taped them in place, and that's the solution we're going with at the moment.

Christian called me out of the blue today to invite me to Men's Prayer at my old church, Calvary Chapel of OKC. Apparently, my old pastor's wife, and Christian's mother-in-law had "major surgery" and they're planning something special at Men's Prayer tomorrow morning. So I'll be waking my chipper butt up around 7am tomorrow so I can shower and get to the church. Here's hoping my car will start up and run. It'll be interesting to see a lot of the people I used to go to church with as, regrettably, I haven't kept touch with anyone except Christian (and it's been a while since I've talked to him even). In fact the last time I saw Christian was when I picked up the pictures from the wedding last year. Man, it's seriously been almost a year since I've seen him? Weird. How can every single day that I'm at work wasting my life away seem to go on forever, yet I can sit here and think that there's almost no way it could be almost a year since I've seen Christian, or gone out of the country, or been married? Just weird, man.

I recently stumbled upon my compact disc recording of "Robot." That is seriously some good stuff. At work the other day I was telling Adrien (who's a movie/music dork like me) about Secrets of the Talking Machine and her response was, "And this is in Oklahoma?" Exactly. It doesn't make sense that these crazy people can actually be in Oklahoma, right? Right. I wish I had a recording of "Grass" and that "Time Problem" would actually come out, but oh well. I talked to Ross via Myspace a little bit yesterday or the day before or something and that was cool. He seems to be doing well. Now, thinking about how long it's been since I've seen him is another one of those things that I can't believe it's been so long. In fact it might have been since the wedding, if I'm not completely mistaken. Shame indeed, it is. Ross said he's been acting a lot and has a girlfriend of over a year or a year or almost a year or something like that. He seems to be happy, which is definitely a good thing.

While we're on the subject of people I haven't seen in a very long time, Nathan mentioned that he ran in to Evan recently. My long, lost father Johnny Evanseed... I didn't really get an update on how he was, but from looking at his Myspace page, he seems to be doing well. Is it sad that we're a generation that keeps in touch with friends and sometimes even family through Myspace? We can't be bothered to write letters or call each other these days, we either send a message on Myspace or just read comments that other people are leaving to get a feel for how said person is doing. Or, of course, there's the dreaded text message. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else about this, because obviously I do it as well. And I'd much rather text than call in most cases. *Bathroom break* Aaaanyyywho.

Tiffany is finished playing Mario Kart now because she's on the hardest difficulty and it's difficult for her. I think I'm going to play some Call of Duty 4 now because it's double Experience Points weekend and I want to reap some of that stuff! COMMENT! And thanks for reading everyone. Hopefully you're all doing well and I'll see you soon.

*I'm Ryan J. Schwimmer, and I approve this totally rad blog.*

Well, I was sitting here in training at work and figured that I didn't really have anything better to do, so I thought I'd write a blog. Trying to type silently on an old crappy keyboard is nearly impossible, by the way. Training is great, considering I'm sitting here writing a blog and getting paid for it. Right on. Anyways, the facilitator of the training is actually in a meeting for the rest of the day and let those of us "Swingers" (people on what we call the Swing Team because we do both sales and service calls) be in charge of the class. So we're just sitting here doing our thing and the people who actually need the information are (mostly) actually doing their work.

I wish camp was at a different time. It does kind of suck that three days when I wouldn't even be on the phone I have to use my time off. But I'm not regretting going to camp. As I said in yesterday's blog, I'm pretty excited about it. We're going out tonight to help set up the 'set' and I'm a little worried about the weather. Hopefully everything will be fine.

I meant to write about this in yesterday's blog but forgot. Surprised? You shouldn't be, I was a big ball of random yesterday. Anywho, I think we know what's wrong with my car, finally. So, I called Randy over on Tuesday and he's looking and poking around in my car. He's working all around my air intake and such, and he takes out this little part, blows on it, and... Voila! Totally fixed. Well, I say that... it started right up, at least. It's been running fine ever since, not that I've driven it very far or anything. He ended up spraying it with some cleaner, but we're not sure if it's going to hold up or not, so if it doesn't, we just need to replace that part and I should be good to go. Here's hoping (and praying)...

I have musical ADD today. I have it most days, but it's really bad today. We're allowed to listen to our iPods during training, and I've been sitting here just skipping song after song because nothing I'm listening to is keeping my interest. I started my shuffle around 1:30pm, and here it is at 2:10 pm and it says I'm on song 506 of nearly 3,000. Obviously I haven't listened to that many... it's a little frustrating. Whatever. by the way, 7 minutes later and it says I'm on 637.

So, since we talked about music, let's talk about movies. The only movie that's coming out soon that I am really excited for is The Dark Knight. I'd like to see The Incredible Hulk but I'm not terribly excited for it like Batman. Josh and Sheila are going to try to get balcony seats at Warren for it, so that will be cool.

Okay, I'm going to surf around endlessly on the internet now while I try to find some music I'd like to listen to. COMMENT!

*I'm Ryan J. Schwimmer and I approve this blog entry.*

So, how's everyone doing today? Good? Great. I'm not doing terribly, myself. Currently I'm sitting on the couch next to Tiffany as she plays Mario Kart Wii. Work's been good the past couple of days because I haven't been on the phone. Training is incredibly boring because so far it's everything I already know. But I am definitely not complaining. It's seriously been so nice to be able to go to work and not have to worry about being tied to the stupid phones all the time. Unfortunately it's not going to last very long, but I'm not focusing on that at the moment. For now it's just going to work and doing boring internet training modules while listening to my iPod (this makes the day go by almost too quickly).

Tomorrow starts some busy camp work. We're heading out to the campgrounds right after work to help with setting up some of the stuff for camp. I'm getting pretty excited to go to camp. We have some pretty awful and evil stuff set up for the kids, it should be a lot of fun. I'm still a little nervous as to how it's all going to work out because I want it to be a lot of fun for the kids, but this is the first time Tiffany or I have done anything like this. Tiffany's been to lots of camps but I've never been, so that's part of why I'm a little worried. Oh well, I'm sure it will work out well.

In response quickly to Jenkins' comment on my last blog, the security code doesn't always matter. Some places still don't ask for that. But yeah, still pissed at Firelake. I still haven't written that email/letter but I intend to do it soon.

Sorry I'm all over the place today. Downloaded "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffet for Rock Band and played that today with Tiffany. It was a lot of fun to play. Buffet always reminds me of our honeymoon and going to Margaritaville on our last day in Cozumel. It was the best place we went to all-around while we were gone. The waiters were friendly and hilarious, the drinks were really good, and the food was good as well. This was the infamous flaming shot incident. See, we avoided Margaritaville every day on our trip even though it was the closest restaurant to the hotel we were staying in because Nathan kept telling us how he paid like $30 for a margarita and all this other stuff. But the last day we had tried all the other places we wanted to go (Senor Frogs, Hard Rock, all the hotel's restaurants [which were okay]), so we went for lunch. Sure enough, the drinks were competitively priced, and much better than the other places. Now, keep in mind, this is lunch and we've been up without any food for about 4 hours by this point. So I'm a lightweight anyways, and this margarita I have totally messes me up. Then, after we tell the waiter that we're honeymooners, he insists that I drink a flaming shot. Eventually I did, and when we got back to the hotel, of course, I decided I wanted to go directly into the ocean. So I did, and it was fun.

That story kinda fell apart. Sorry about that. Anyways, thanks for reading. I'm going to get to bed and stuff after I finish talking with Blake. Relationships are stupid sometimes. I love my wife. Comment!

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

End of the weekend which went by entirely too fast, and I can't even begin to tell you how ready I am to go to work in the morning. I just can't. It would be stupid to try, because it's totally and utterly impossible. I'm just so... yeah. Anyways, it's been a good weekend but again it went by way too fast. Friday night we did some errands and went to dinner with my grandma and Adam. That was a fun time. Saturday was mainly ruled by the incident that was "Firelake Grand Casino's Completely, Utterly Retarded and Horrendous Way of Doing Events." Let me explain. (Like I have to ask permission to write about something in my own blog?)

So we arrive around 12:45 or so. There's already a line to get Line Passes. See, you have to wait in line to get a line pass. They hand out passes A, B, C, and D starting at 3:00, then that tells you what line to get in before the show. So basically we wait for around two hours to get Line Pass A, then immediate go get in Line A to wait until 4:00 when they start letting Line A in to the show. It was a total cluster bunch of retardedness. What made it even worse was that they didn't even have the lines set up once we got our line passes, so we got yelled at by the incredibly stupid Security people while they scrambled to set up lines. I swear, if there is ever another event at Firelake Grand Casino that I'm even DYING to see, I will not go if it's still going to be like this. It's totally ridiculous, and I'll be writing a letter/email to them tomorrow. Oh, and another thing that really made me angry was the fact that the tickets for the show were kept in an envelope with my name on it, along with my credit card number and expiration date. Sigh. Morons. Let's keep a box full of envelopes with credit card numbers and expiration dates at a place where people with serious problems and serious addictions will do anything they can to feed those problems and addictions.

Anyways, now that I'm done with that, on to some better news. The Jeff Dunham show was absolutely hilarious. Not a single repeat joke. Jeff is actually filming a Christmas special next week, so we got to pretend it was Christmas in May. It was quite hilarious. If anyone has a chance to see Jeff live, I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow will be my first of only four days this month where I actually have to be on the phones at work. I'll be on the phones on Mondays, and the rest of the days I'm going to be in training for servicing Homeowners policies. This is a total blessing and I'm very happy to not have to be on the phones all stupid month. I touched on this a bit in the last blog. Hopefully the Mondays aren't going to be make me completely crazy.

It's late, it's been a long day (even though it went by pretty quickly), and I'm tired. Thank you all for reading. Comment, and I'm sure I'll see you soon.

-Ryan J. Schwimmer