293. living in sin

Well, I suppose this comes as no surprise to regular readers (and perhaps to irregular readers as well), but the Tomato Stand is taking a leave of absence.

Main reason: I'm just too busy.

Examples:

1. This month there've been four visitors from Hawaii in town and there's a couple more on the way. Entertaining, while supremely fun, is also time consuming.

2. My band is recording new material for an EP that we hope to take with us when we go on tour in the summer so that's eating up a bunch of my time.

3. I love my new job but the commute is KILLER. It's at least one hour, one way which means even if I drive (I try to bus whenever I can), the commute to work takes a two hour bite out of my day.

I believe there are other time sinks that I may not be aware of. I suppose it may be time to man up and start ordering and structuring my life more. At the very least I'd be able to see where all my free time is draining away to.

Honestly, I hate not having time to write. One, because I love writing, two because I know I'm disappointing readers (all three of you), and three because, frankly, it feels like I'm living in sin.

See, sin is not just doing things you know are wrong (sins of commission), it also has to with not doing things you ought to be doing (sins of omission). As inconsistently and as clumsily as I do it, I believe that writing is a gift that God has given me and for me not to exercise it is sin. I honestly do feel that badly about it.

Be that as it may though, I am going to be taking a break. I hope to be back at blogging by the end of March, hopefully sooner.

Pray for me, a sinner.

292. I'm not the only one - Hillary and Barack part 2

A few weeks ago I wrote up a post where I likened Barack to a Mac and Hillary to a PC.

Looks like I'm not alone in thinking this: New York Times article, Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

From the article:

"On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC."

Does that make me an expert?

291. back soon...

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've got some stuff brewing in the queue, but they're not done yet. Soon.

A quick update until I can get to the longer posts:

1. I really like my new job. It's a really geeky, techy company and the people are cool. What do I do there? Well for now I'm just helping out with miscellaneous maintenance tasks. I don't mean I'm sweeping floors or cleaning windows, I mean I'm helping out with some of the tedious, repetitive jobs that are a part of moving their products through the pipeline towards production.

2. The job is great but the commute sucks. If I drive, it normally takes about an hour to get there. If I take the bus it takes about an hour and a half. I try to take the bus because I can read on the ride there...and because it's greener.

3. The commute time is part of why I haven't been able to blog lately. Even if I drove everyday, the commute carves at least two hours out of my day. I thought I'd be able to blog on the bus but the bumpy ride makes typing too awkward and error prone.

4. My band has been working on recording new material and so that's been keeping me busy as well. We've also been meeting with some really cool people who are willing to help us kick it up a notch - band manager, web design team, and an amazing photographer!

Well, those are the big items in my life right now. There are lots of things I want to write about and so I'm trying to find the time. In the meantime, click here and help my pastor win in Metroblogging Seattle's blog competition.