"Veritas"

VERSE 1
I walked away
Looked in your eyes
Shot you down as you begged me to stay.
Now you
Are gagged and bound
No, I won't let you spread all your life taking lies all around.

CHORUS
Veritas Vos Liberabit
An introspective view reveals the key.
Veritas Vos Liberabit
With my own lips I can break the chains that bind me.

Verse 2
I was your slave
Followed your every command
Almost into the grave.
But not
The table turns
And I'm gonna watch what you build
As it crashes and burns.

Chorus

Bridge
Lies cost more
Than you bargained for
or can pay.
Words cause war
And restore
the Broken.

Chorus

Copyright©2008 by Justin Randall Brown

Remember how I love lists?

Currently

Things I love:
Customizing and riding my bicycle
Reading
Smoked Turkey and Munster Sandwiches
Bringing my lunch to work
Writing new music

Things I hate:
My job
My fruitless job search
The hot weather

Vacation and the return to real life

Well, I had an amazing vacation in beautiful Lake Tahoe. It was so good to have time away from everything stressful. Normally I lay around and get pretty lazy when I have time away from work, but not this time. My trip to Tahoe was full of activities ranging from a 13 mile kayak expedition, a 4 hour hike with a 1200ft elevation change ( from 7600-8800ft), a very cool and education cruise tour around the lake, a concert featuring REO Speedwagon and Styx, and lots of other great things. An added bonus of the trip is that spending so much time being active has sparked in me the desire to stay that active and to appreciate the natural beauty in my home town. I am currently mapping out and planning several hiking treks in Georgetown. They range in difficulty and length from the very flat zero elevation change San Gabriel Trail at only 1 mile in length to the grade 4 incredibly rocky Good Water trail at a daunting 16.5 miles around Lake Georgetown. I am saving the long one for October or November when it is much cooler and there aren't as many snakes and mosquitoes. Joey Halbert-you will need to join me for this hike. Also, I want people to come on alot of hikes with me. So let me know if you want to come.

The bad part of being on vacation is coming home. I am still not making progress in finding a new job and some days it just seems hopeless. One thing that became very real to me today as I felt another possible job slip through my fingers was this: I can wait for a job to change my life, or I can change my life and wait for a job. I need to stay focused on accomplishing the latter of the two. Prepare to witness change...but please keep praying for a job.

In parting I want to leave you with this very personal fact...so we can all feel connected:
High altitude gives me gas and constipation.

Enjoy!

Three days

I have three days of work left until I leave for Lake Tahoe with my beautiful wife. I sincerely need this time away from work.

My friend Joseph and I are collaborating and planning to build a tiny house or cabin. Not tiny like a doll house, but tiny like only the space you need. It's gonna be sweet.

I don't have anything else I want to say right now.

"I went to the woods..."

So, I really want to get a small plot of land and build a little cabin like Henry David Thoreau did. I know it would be hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but I would love to have someplace to go and get out in nature and just be away from all modern things. Just get my head clear. Also I like to build stuff.

If anybody has some land somewhere in Texas and you would like to have a cabin like this on your land...I have a deal for you. I will purchase the materials and build the cabin on your land in exchange for frequent unannounced use of the cabin. Good deal, eh?

Next week I am going to be in Lake Tahoe and I am excited.

HEAT SUCKS!

Seriously?! 10 straight days of triple digits? Not fun. Oh well...it will make my beautiful autumn feel all the better.

This weekend my wife and I super cleaned our abode and having a clean house helps you keep a clear mind...at least for me it does.

We scored this sweet vintage wall mounted liqueur cabinet with stained glass in it and put it in our kitchen. Needless to say, it's awesome.

I am very hopeful that I will get a call back from Charles Schwab this week. Maybe you can all be hoping for that as well.

I got my car washed at this cool place where it's all done by hand and it looks awesome. For some reason I think that getting in a car accident right after you got your car washed would be worse than any other time. Accept maybe if you had just got your car washed and you were rushing home because you were about to have an ass-plosion and then you got in a wreck. That would be worse.

I have another 6 day work week and I am not excited about it. I need help staying positive and grateful right now. Maybe it's just because it's Monday.

I am sorry for my absence

Over the past month one of our three member management team left. Consequently I have been working six days a week and have had very little time to update. I am STILL grateful to be employed.

Yesterday, my little brother and I put up ceiling fans in my house to surprise my wife and it was awesome. First of all, J and I knocked out the installing of both of the fans in less than an hour and a half combined. Secondly, Kim was very surprised and it was great to see her reaction. I love working on my home and my yard...it has really helped to keep my appreciating what God has given me.

I am off on Sunday and I plan to go to church, have a great home-made lunch with my wife, and do a little yard work. It will be wonderful.

I am also very excited to be spending the 4th of July with my wife and my family in my parents new house. It's always fun to spend holidays with family...especially my family.

Keep me in your prayers.

What I tell You Three times in True

Yet again I write a blog to say that things are not going so well, but I am trying to stay hopeful. I am still with out a new career path, but I am grateful for the job that I have. More than that, I am grateful for the life I have.

In the course of two days I had three very close friends tell me they felt that I should return to the church and try to connect. I am definitely going to start searching for a good church for my wife and I, but I am a bit conflicted. I don't think that it is OK to go to church so that you get a new job, but if I am very honest...I am hoping that this return to practicing a faith based ritual will in some way help me in my search. I do believe God understands and does not condemn this back burner thought.

I gotta keep on keepin' on.

LOVE.LOVE.LOVE.

Update

I am spoke with a career counselor who told me to join facebook to help me find a new job. I did so and instead of a job offer I received countless "friend requests" from people I knew way back when. In an effort to broaden my network, I have only declined friendship to about a dozen people. I am trying to join launch[ad job club but I can't seem to sign up and I sent them an e-mail explaining this and received no further instruction. Frustrating.

Saturday I sat and talked with some people I hadn't seen in a quite some time and our conversation was encouraging. Nobody told me"Everything will be alright" or "I'm sure you'll get a great job real soon", but I was told by people who have known me since I was very young that they are proud of how I am handling this situation. That was and still is encouraging. God is allowing me a little bit of instant gratification by making it clear that this time in my life is teaching me alot of very valuable lessons. I am also really happy and excited for the great direction and possible new career my wife has found. I know this will sound really WBish, but seeing my wife happy makes it alot easier for me to deal with a crappy career.

I got to play pool football with my dad and brothers today. We probably hadn't done that in 3 years. It was alot of fun and left me a in a very satisfying state of tired" Does anybody else know what I mean by that? It's a good tired. I sleep well type of exhausted.

I have a great family.

Swinging for the fences

As you all new I am desperately searching for a new career. Things at my current job took a terrible turn about a month ago and have gotten steadily worse since then. I have been looking for jobs and networking, but nothing has come of it. Now, it is time I start swinging for the fences. If you have ever seen a baseball player strike out swinging,there are two ways it goes down. The first way is seen by the guy trying to get one base. He doesn't want to swing to hard because he's worried about pulling it foul, or missing all together and then not only would he not be on base, but he might look desperate or stupid. The other way it happens is when I guy steps up to the plate already determined to swing as hard as he can at the pitches coming his way. He may miss three good pitches, but even when he strikes out the people on his team and those watching will say things like "Man, if he had made contact that thing would have been outta here!" He will strike out looking desperate and maybe even exhausted. But no one will be able to say he didn't give those three swings every thing he had. I am that guy. I have been taking timid swings at a new career, but now the pine tar is on and I am ready to dislocate a shoulder swinging for the fences. If you are parked directly beyond the center field wall...I apologize for what is going to happen to your windshield.

As always I ask for your continued prayers and encouragement and if any of you have any solid jobs leads I would be most grateful to hear of them.

LOVE.LOVE.LOVE.

Be anxious for nothing

I feel relatively confident that every single person who reads this blog is either family or close enough to be considered family. For that reason I don't feel the need to explain in great detail that I am a man of faith, but I am not overtly spiritual. That being said, this past week God has shown me a great lesson I have heard my whole life in a brand new light. My last post explained how things at work had gone from bad to worse...and then to terrible. I felt the need ,not only as a man with a job to do, but as a husband who needs to working on being in control of his emotions regardless of circumstance to do my very best to see the good in this situation...or at least be grateful that I am employed. This turned out better than I ever could have imagined. Not only did I feel much better about my situation and truly start to be thankful for what God has provided, but I was able to change the downhearted feeling in my work environment to one of hope and opportunity. By far the greatest thing to come from truly trusting God ( a very difficult task at times) is that my wife and I have grown incredibly closer through this. She saw how hard I was trying to stay positive and she in turn has been incredibly supportive. I guess the whole point of posting this is just to say that I am extremely thankful for the way things have worked out thus far and I am excited, not scared, to see where they go from here. I hate hearing things about how hard times build character and all that crap because nobody wants to hear that when they are royaly pissed off, but the fact of the matter is that God can use all things to his glory and I am learning that in a way I never would have thought.

On a related note I have applied for a position with Texas Parks and Wildlife and I would greatly appreciate your prayers on that front.

I am thinking about starting a weekly or monthly game night at Kimberly and I's home. I think it's very important to stay close to friends and family, especially when times are tough...so if you'd be down with game night...let me know. Perhaps yard bowling would be fun.

Update

Things at work have taken a turn for the worse. My boss was fired and it would seem that corporate is on a witch hunt. Consequently I have started an all hands on deck job search. By this I mean that I am asking very sincerely that all of my friends and family keep an eye and an ear out for a possible job opening for me. I am praying that God shows me exactly what to do in this situation, because in all honesty...I am out of patience for this crap and getting through this will only happen with God's help. So please be praying for me. If you want to know some specific things to pray for I have a short list:
Patience
Faith
The ability to see God as my provider
The ability to give my stress to God (I developed an involuntary eye twitch this past week)
A GREAT NEW JOB VERY VERY SOON!

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated.

I hit the hot-tub with my family last night. Good times. I think it's very important to have a great family support system during times of great stress. I am very blessed to have that.

I am going to go try not to be stressed out now.

The Summer of Greatness

In previous posts I have alluded to my premonition that this will be greatest summer of my life to date. Today, I want to take the opportunity to tell you all some of the things I have planned for this summer and why they will make this the greatest summer I have experienced thus far. After I have told you about my plans I want to open the floor to comments, questions, and suggestions about what else I might do this summer. However, before we get into my presentation, I want to give you an abbreviated back story on the history of myself and summers.

When I was a very young boy I loved summer. My brothers and I would spend all day playing outside with friends and doing things like running through the sprinklers, building forts, catching bugs and small animals, and so on and so forth. My love for the hottest season of the year started to wain as I started high school. As a young man with the desire to be involved in activities that cost money, I spent my summers working. Oh sure I had ALOT of free time even when I was working, but to a young teen being, every moment not spent in school should be spent doing whatever he pleases. And so, this disdain for the months between May and September grew stronger as I entered college and began attending both school AND work year round. Then, summer was just like the rest of the year...only much MUCH hotter!
I have since graduated college, taken a wife, and we have purchased a home. Not only do I have all of these things to celebrate year round, but I have an abundance of friends and family with whom I wish to spend my time...even in the summer. Additionally, summer happens to be my wife's favorite season of them all ( I suppose opposites DO attract) and so because I love her I love what she loves. Summer Included. And that brings us to why this summer will be the best ever. I give you the list of activities that will make up "The Summer of Greatness"

May
1 year wedding anniversary
My brother Joseph's wedding in Montana
My wife's birthday
My brother Jeremy's high school graduation

June
My sister Bethany's wedding in Texas
My cousin Ryan's wedding in North Dakota

July
4th of July Bar-B-Q (tentative)
Vacation in Nevada with my wife

Miscellanies Summer Fun
Round Rock Express Baseball Games
Building our backyard deck
Family and friend backyard parties
Swimming at our neighborhood pool
Trips to the lakehouse in Conroe
Trips to the Boat House in Belton
Trips to the coast
Fishing
Being tan
Playing Frisbee
Helping my family love into thier new home
Teaching Rovy to swim (the backstroke)
Running at San Gabriel Park
Kayaking
Camping
AND SO MUCH MORE!

I want to let you know that if you are reading this, I want to spend time with you this summer. We can do lots of activities on this list or anything else you can think up.

Now, I want t turn it over to you all and hear what you think of my plans for "The Summer of Greatness". Will you be joining me for this all season long celebration? Do you have more ideas of how to make this the best summer ever? I would love to hear what you have to say.

I'm really excited!

Artists

If you are an artists you can not stop being an artist. Whether you create visual art, music, poetry, prose, food, or any other of the mediums of art, you can not decide that you will no longer create your art. I know in my own life I have had a time or two when it seemed as though my artistic pursuit had runs it's course, but what I failed to realize is that my creating is not entirely up to me. If I never set foot on a stage again I am still a musician and a song writer. I NEED to write music. It's good for my soul to hear emotion, my emotion, expressed through melody. Maybe this all sounds a bit out there, but I know too many people who create art in one fashion or another who are extremely creative and still, like myself, have shied away from making their art. So, to myself and to all of you I say LIVE FULLY, BREATH DEEP, AND CREATE!

I will never get this

Texas weather consistently confounds me. A few days ago I was with my little brother sitting on my back porch sipping some awesome sweet tea and enjoying the mid 8o degree temperatures. We decided to throw the football. After approximately 3.1 throws it started to rain very lightly. Over the next 45 minutes it poured rain and hail. once the rain had subsided we went outside to find that it was in the low 50's. RIDICULOUS!

Anyway, after tonight I am off for three days and I am very excited. My wife and I will get to work on the back yard and get it ready for so many summer shindigs. We will also get to go jogging at the very beautiful San Gabriel park ( a new favorite pass time) and actually prepare a meal together, sit down at the table and eat together, and then she'll clean up the mess I make while eating. No seriously...I'll help too...kinda...I mean I'll provide entertainment while she cleans up.

We have finally entered the last stage of our great kitchen hutch build and will be installing it tomorrow. I really love building things with my hands and also working together with Kimberly...so this project has been great fun for me. It's almost a shame to complete it.Oh well...we need to put our dishes some where.

I know soda is bad for you...I know this. I also know that I am an addict and there are alot worse things to be addicted to. I am trying to ween myself off of soda by switching to caffeine free. I still just can't bring myself to drink diet. It tastes like rat poison smells.

Just to update you all on the job hunt situation, I have a seemingly good situation in which a company got my resume through a friend who works there and liked what they saw enough that they are trying to create a position for me. The work I would be doing is in my degree and badly needed in the company, but creating a position can take some time. To follow the wisdom "don't put all your eggs in one basket" I am continuing the search for a better career. Keep me in your prayers.

I am getting very excited about the traveling my wife and I will be doing this summer. My little brothers wedding in May is in Montana, where I have never been. Less than a month later we will head to South Dakota for Kimberly's cousin's wedding. I have also never been there, but I have a great interest in that area and it's people.

So, this summer will be the greatest summer ever and I am very optimistic about what it holds. Opportunity abounds!

LONG weekend recap

The weekend was long...not the recap. Here's some of what I did:

Played my madden Season (currently 16-0 heading into play offs with an injured QB)
Hunt out with my beautiful wife
Purchased and set up a new patio set. SWEET!
Played at my friends back yard driving range...I suck at golf.
Watched me some March Madness
Started painting a piece of furniture for our kitchen
Job searched
Read "Lake Woebegone Days" by Garrison Keillor
Hung out in my back yard with Rovy

I know what your thinking. "Justin" you'll say. "You didn't go anywhere or do anything really exciting." Then I'll shoot you a slight grin and say..."Exactly." I loved just hanging out. It was good for my soul.

Also, even though I was on vacation I did a good job not blowing my diet and I am proud to say I am still on target for the whole looking good thing.

I have a very interesting prospect for a new career and I am praying that it comes through. I feel pretty strongly that this job would be really great for me and that the company I would be working for really needs me. That's a good feeling. The problem is that they have to create the position for me to fill and that can take some time. Oh well. It's out of my hands.

I have another long weekend this weekend...only this one is 3 days instead of five. Nice.

What have you been up to? Let me know

T minus 5 and a half hours!

That's how long I have until my vacation starts and I am super jacked about it! There will be kayaking, grilling,disk golfing, playing of madden '05 n PS2, hopefully getting to see some friends I haven't seen in a while, yard work, and general fun.

My wife and I went running this morning...yeah...in the morning. I hate early morning, but after you get your athletic attire on and get out the door...you will be so glad you did! First of all, when we got home is was almost 9am and we were full of energy and had a ton of time to do what we wanted. Secondly, research shows that if you exercise first thing in the morning you will lose more weight, have more energy, and retain information better for the whole day. That's a pretty sweet side affect.

I started playing Madden in Franchise Mode after a discussion with my brother about the possibility of making to the super bowl. I am in week 6 and with one of those weeks being a bye...I currently stand 5-0 and lead the conference. I know this may sound lame, but I need some sort of football to get me through to the start of the NFL pre-season.

So, um...nobody offered to give me an iPod yet. Selfish, yeah? That's alright. For your next birthday I am going to buy you an iPod...except it will be for me and I won't actually give you anything.That's what!

5 Days

That is how long I have away from work starting Thursday. I am extremely excited about this and plan do accomplish quite a bit during this time. One thing I hope to accomplish is relaxation. Yeah...maybe get a massage...finally. I also want to work around the house, spend a ton of time outside, get together with friends, make great meals for my wife and I, exercise, play some music, and maybe get a tan. That sounds like a sweet week to me.

I went running yesterday and I had a feeling afterwards I would like to share with you. I am sore. I hurt in muscles I had almost forgotten. In addition to the pain is an urge to do it again. I am feeling good about my fitness plan.

On a related topic, I am trying to eat right and make better food choices. So far the hardest thing to deal with is the desire to snack alot. I love having something to munch on and what I didn't realize the insane amount of calories I was putting into my body between meals. Terrible. I'm workin on it though. Give me 6 weeks and I will look different.

Similar Stupidity Part 2

Today's installment is about parenting or the lack there of among cultures. All of these styles have been witness numerous times by myself while trying to do my job in a place of business. I submit the following:

White people are an interesting group to watch with their kids. I understand that there are a million different parenting style, but one that belongs almost exclusively to white parents is the "Put a cute little leash on your children" technique. Ironically, the parents that leash their children like animals are usually the same parents who think they can "negotiate" with a screaming 2 year old who is pissed off at the world because their mommy and daddy didn't buy them that Hanna Montana inflatable singing cereal bowl/doll stage. Talk about sending mixed signals.

Black parents tend to be more old school in their approach to child rearing. I am a HUGE believer in spanking, but there is a time and a place...and time is not right now while you are shopping in my store. Do you know how awkward it is to be reaching out to take some one's credit card only to have that hand swiftly redirected to the a$$ of a child standing less than two feet away?! And it only gets better when they hand you the card that was just used as an instrument of punishment. "Alright ma'am, here's your receipt and your tool of infant gluteus destruction. Have a great day."

The last category of parenting has been observed in every culture, but seems to run rampant in Asians, middle eastern families, and Mexican nationals. I am speaking of the hands off approach. You've all seen these people. There kid is tearing a store to shreds or just as often peeing in a fitting room, and the parents act as though they are no more responsible for the child than they are the weather. My favorite part is when I have repeatedly asked the kids to stop whatever socially unacceptable behavior they are engaged in numerous times (my max is 3) and after seeing no change in actions or attempts to reign in unruly youngsters by the parents...I kick them out of my store. The parents always look shocked and incredibly offended that I would be so brazen as to ask their child to please not defecate on the jeans. How rude of me.

I want to make sure not to leave out a parenting group that also spans all races and genders...the one's that actually do a good job. I saved them for last because they aren't very funny and also...they're pretty rare these days. I go out of my way to tell kids what a great job they did shopping and compliment the parents as well when I encounter the rarest of all beasts...a well behaved child.

Well that's it for this episode, but stay tuned for the next installment of Similar Stupidity.

Just an Update

I feel like I am doing a good job of keeping this updated lately. Today I have no particular topic to discuss other than some things I have been thinking and working on.

Fitness - I have talked a little bit about how I want to get back into good shape and be a good steward of the body God gave me. So, this morning my wife and I went out and purchased some clothing and shoes more appropriate for the pursuit of physical fitness. When I was a kid I loved to wear shorts and cowboy boots, but some how that look doesn't translate when you are in your mid to late twenties. I have written down my goals in easily measurable metrics and I am optimistic about meeting those goals.

Music - I have been playing some new songs with my younger brother and liking what we have created. Our combined efforts always seem to take us a mellow and somewhat understated direction that is foreign to me. It's very cool.

Massages - I freakin' love massages and would get one every day of my life if I could. Anyway, I have recently become completely addicted to watching massage training videos on youtube. I know it sounds weird, but just watching them is insanely relaxing. Be careful when you are searching for these videos...there are some not so family friendly ones out there. I suggest any of the technique videos posted by "massagenerd". Pretty much anything with nerd in the title is safe.

iPods - I don't own one, and I am starting to see how incredibly convenient they are. I have a large collection of music, most of which is in CD format and it is very annoying to have try to switch CD's while I'm driving...not to mention dangerous. I also don't like the idea of keeping multiple volumes of CD books in my car...that's just asking for trouble. So, I want to get an iPod, but before I go crazy and buy whatever $200 version is popular right now, I thought I'd see if anybody wanted to sell me their older version. I assume they all work in basically the same fashion, so a used one would be a good test run. Let me know if you or any one that you know wants to sell ( or give ) me their old iPod.

Summer - I have not been a fan of summer for most of my life. However, I have decided that this summer will be amazing! I want to take weekend trips with my wife and friends and family. Try new things and see new places. It will be great.

I leave you with a joke:
A guy with amnesia walks up to a woman in a bar and says "So...do I come here often?"