Thank You!

Sweet!

After enjoying a wonderful week away with my beautiful wife at Tucson’s Westward Look Resort and getting the opportunity to hang out with some great new Arizona friends, I returned home to find a brown package on the dining table with my name on it. I was very excited to find a brand spanking new hardback copy of Donald Miller’s new book “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years”! It should be noted that I believe that one of the absolute coolest and most valuable things that a person can receive for the awesome price of FREE in this world is a great book. How, you may be asking, was I graced with a copy of a book by one of my all-time favorite authors? It was all thanks to some very cool people and magic of the Internet.

Social media and marketing genius Chris Brogan partnered with Thomas Nelson Publishers’ CEO, Michael Hyatt to offer 100 copies of “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years” by Donald Miller for posting a blog response to Chris Brogan’s Donald Miller Project. Chris asked us to post a blog focusing on the importance of story in your life, which I did (read it here). I had a great time reading the variety of blog responses that people shared for this project. Check out the full list of the 100 winners here and read all of the great postings. I was honored to receive a copy of the book and find my name among the list of 100 bloggers.

A heartfelt thank you to Chris Brogan, Michael Hyatt, and Donald Miller! I will post my thoughts on “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years” once I finish reading it. I am very excited that this is the first book that I will get the opportunity to read that is not school or work related in a long time. Thanks again to Chris, Michael, and Don! Have a great week everyone!

Follow Friday Blog: 04.16.2010

Is it me or does the day after tax day always feel like a national hangover? I hope you all have a fat check coming your way this year; we could all use it. So, in celebration of tax season being over and done with, I have decided to borrow a pretty cool idea from Chris Brogan and I am sharing my Twitter Follow Friday picks here on my blog! What does Follow Friday have to do with taxes? Nothin’! Quit over thinking it and enjoy! Happy Follow Friday Everyone!

@chrisbrogan Let’s kick it off with the guy who shared the idea in the first place! Chris Brogan is a social media advisor and the New York Times Best Selling author of Trust Agents. His Twitter feed is a must follow and I highly advise checking out his blog at www.chrisbrogan.com.

@salsaking26 Armando makes some bad ass salsa! I discovered the fabulous offerings of Burnt Orange Foods thanks to Twitter! You can pick up their munchies either online or at any of a number of farmer’s markets throughout Southern Arizona! Make sure that you follow Armando’s Twitter feed and become a fan on Facebook. Everything they turn out is awesome! I am a personal fan of the Coffee Infused Chipotle Salsa; perfect for a salsa loving former Seattleite like me! Expect more great things from Burnt Orange Foods in the future, I will update you as I learn more.

@cooklocal Cook. Eat. Live. Local. Patricia & John post awesome recipes and great information and tips on growing, cooking, and eating local. They are based out of the Pacific Northwest, but I advise anyone with a love of great food to follow their Twitter feed and check out their website at www.cooklocal.com.

I’m keeping it short and sweet this week with 3 great offerings for this week’s Follow Friday. Why 3? Simple, it’s the magic number!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Living A Better Story

Did you ever wish that you had audible soundtrack for everyday life when you were growing up? Me too, I still do in fact. Just the other day I found myself contemplating what it might take to have Christopher Walken actually narrate one of my more mundane days to make things a little more interesting. I think this strange want for a soundtrack (and a narrator) comes from my desire to live a life worth watching, worth reading about, actually worth living. I want my story to be larger than just little ole me.

I believe that it is important to live a life that actually contains a story worth telling and lately I have found myself contemplating how exactly that can be done. The top priorities in my life are without a doubt faith, family, love, and happiness. Knowing those priorities is the first step, but translating those priorities into my everyday life is where the challenge lies for me. I am discovering that those four priorities are the fuel which are capable of driving a life that contains a greater story. When I lose sight of one of my four priorities I have to make a change or pursue a new goal that will right the order of those priorities and bring them back to the forefront. For instance, in my professional life, if I find that I am consumed with working long hours with no time for family, friends, or life outside of being at the office I have to make a change. In fact, I find I need more than a change, I need reinvention, a new direction, a new ordering of my priorities. Sometimes that means having the courage to completely walk away from a career or a pursuit that is taking my life in the wrong direction.

Embracing change and confronting fear in order to live the priorities or values that you want to embody is part of living a life that contains a story. So far it has given me a life that in 33 years that has taken me from being a young soldier traveling the world and defending a nation, to living out my rock and roll dreams in the entertainment business and getting to experience moments on stage that I never thought that I would, to a life devoted to Christ, meeting my beautiful wife, and now standing at yet another fork in the road. What is next? A new career that allows me to live the life that I want to live? The adventure of fatherhood along with the joys of marriage?

I guess what I honestly want is to live a life that will outlive me. When I die, I hope that I will have affected enough people in the course of my life that my obituary will be more interesting than a list of clubs belonged to or hobbies that I had. I hope that there will be a story to tell, to learn from, to laugh about, to love. How to build that is something that I am still trying to figure out as I think a lot of us are.

What story do you want your life to tell? Whose story has affected your life? Shoot me an email at rememberedbygod@gmail.com and share it with me!

Grilling Season is Here!

Ahhh yes, one of favorite times of year…grilling season! I remember some years ago when I was living in Seattle and going back to school after getting out of the Army, one of my best brothas from anotha motha; Chris Troyer, finally got free of his commitment to Uncle Sam and moved out to Seattle to go to school as well. Since his wife still had some time in the service to go, I invited Chris to crash at my place until she joined him in Seattle and they could find a place. At the time I had an old school Weber charcoal grill and a decent little balcony for grilling and hanging out. That Summer in Seattle I am pretty sure that Chris and I ate almost every meal from that grill. Wake up in the morning…fire up the coals. Get back from a long day of class or work…crack a cold one and get the grill going. It was a fun way to spend the Summer with a great friend and the eating was phenomenal.

I went on to have great grilling seasons every year in the Pacific Northwest and the only regret that I had cooking wise was that grilling season never felt long enough due to the weather. I did learn a few tricks with my grilling buddies up in Seattle like how to properly grill great pizza, the right way to use cedar planks to produce some succulent salmon, and how the grill doesn’t make the cook. I owned a few grills up there and got the pleasure of cooking on great grills belonging to a variety of good friends. Of all of the grills that I owned, I think my favorite was the Aussie Walkabout charcoal grill that I had at my place up on Queen Anne Hill. My favorite friend-owned grill that I had the joy of cooking on is without a doubt the Weber Genesis EP-310.

Now I am thoroughly enjoying kicking off my first grilling season here in sunny Arizona. We got an official start on 2010 grilling last night with a wonderful selection of burgers brought by our friendly neighborhood meat guy (more on the meat in a later post). I decided to go with the simple addition of some Weber Chicago Steak Seasoning and fired up the grill. Today, we let lunch keep us cooking out back with some killer Sun-Dried Tomato & Mozzarella Cheese Smoked Chicken and Turkey Sausages with a fresh side of chips and salsa. Life is good without a cloud in the sky, a hot grill, and great food!

What are you up to this grilling season? Shoot me an email and tell me about your favorite recipe, grilling website, grilling stories, or grilling season traditions. Have a blast this year and make sure you come by and enjoy some grilling at my place!

Lazy Blogger

How time does fly when life is rockin’ full-tilt boogie around the clock! It has certainly been too long since I contributed to what is the “Border Disciple.” So, let’s get after an update! What do ya say?

The last time we met I laid out 8 New Year’s Resolutions in an effort to map out the positive changes that I want to see in my life during the coming year. Here we are at the end of March and you may be wondering how the Battle of the Resolutions is going. Good news, 2 resolutions down and 3 in progress!

In January, I am proud to say that I successfully passed my Technician Class Ham Radio License Exam! I am officially a HAM Radio operator according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)! I owe a ton of gratitude to the awesome folks over at the Cochise Amateur Radio Association (CARA – K7RDG) for taking me in and offering classes and study aids along with their volumes of knowledge to help me along the way. I am looking forward to getting more involved with CARA later this year as more of my resolutions get checked off and my schedule opens up.

The second resolution checked off of the list is a doozy. On January 25, 2010 both Siri and I finally made the commitment to quit smoking for good! It has been a challenge for both of us in different ways, but I think that one of the major things that has allowed us to be successful in quitting is being able to do it together and support each other when the urges and temptations get overwhelming. Both of us have tried different means of quitting in the past, but this time we decided to take advantage of the Free & Clear: Quit For Life program that was offered for the awesome price of FREE through my current benefits package. The program included a free 8-week supply of the Nicoderm CQ nicotine patches and 24-hour phone support with “quit counselors”. I think we were both a little skeptical at first considering that we had both tried other methods and failed, but in the end, this program was the right fit for us. We didn’t really make use of the phone support because we leaned on each other a lot when it got tough, but the patches did help the transition feel more natural and help break the habit. As of the time of this blog we are happily smoke free for 65 days, 15 hours, 5 minutes, and 28 seconds and together in that time we have not smoked 2,640 cigarettes between us!! I think that’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself.

Currently, I have 3 other resolutions in progress. On May 1, 2010 I am very excited to announce that I will be officially completing my Bachelor’s Degree as a graduate of the Blanchard School of Business at Grand Canyon University! I will be walking on May 1st at the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks; Chase Field during the 2010 GCU Commencement Ceremony!

As for the other 2 in-progress resolutions, well, I am going to keep those under wraps for now. I am quite happy just celebrating the victories that I have racked up so far this year and quietly focusing on the challenges that are still in front of me. More updates to come and I promise it won’t take me another three months to blog again. In the meantime, how is your 2010 going? Seriously, I want to know! Post comments or shoot me an email to let me know what is going on in your world this year. Cheers!

The 2010 List: My New Year’s Resolutions

I have never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. I think that I have always subconsciously recognized them as goals that are set up for failure due in part to the way that most people joke about people giving up on them before the end of January each year. Honestly, I have grown tired of my New Year’s Resolutions becoming an prelude to saying “Well….there’s always next year, right?” That isn’t the kind of person that I am, when I set goals I pursue them until I achieve them and move on to the next objective. So, in the spirit of slaying my negative view of New Year’s Resolutions I am blogging my list for 2010 and I will update you all on my progress. Let’s see if public accountability helps breed a little success on this front. Without further fanfare, here is my list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 (in no particular order):

1. Quit Smoking….For Good: This is a health issue and it is well past time that this one happened. I have tried in the past and failed so I am breaking out some new methods and a fresh batch of determination.

2. Finish My Bachelor’s Degree: If all goes according to plan I will be graduating from the Blanchard School of Business at Grand Canyon University this year!

3. Earn My HAM Radio Ticket: I have been talking about doing this for probably ten years now. Since I have recently returned to the scene of my radio loving roots it is time to knock this one out as well.

4. Obtain My Real Estate License: It is time for a new and more inspired direction in the career department. Work-Life balance has been an important issue to me for a long time and this ought to be a good first step toward improving that situation. (Sidebar: For those of you who plan to tell me that Real Estate is time consuming and stressful, I should let you know that my current job actually trumps that ten fold and that I have researched this move extensively–thanks for your concern).

5. Live Healthier: This resolution is about creating and living a healthier lifestyle including keeping a good workout schedule, getting more sleep, taking my vitamins, and eating better all the way around.

6. Take At Least One Road Trip With My Wife: There are few things I love more than going on adventures with my wife. She is awesome at road tripping and seeing the world with her is one of the coolest things that I know of. So, do we throw a dart at the map? Maybe hit the road to photograph ghost town throughout the Southwest? Drive Route 66? We shall see…

7. Visit My Parents: I need to visit both of my parents this year. As we grow older and life foists an ever-present list of to-do’s upon us it seems that time moves faster and faster. This shouldn’t get in the way of spending time with the ones we love.

8. Play A Round Of Golf: I just bought a used set of golf clubs for next to nothing and I am excited about the prospect of being able to golf well enough to hit that links rather than struggling at the driving range. It is a hobby that ought to help me both in work and in relaxing outside of work.

I know, I know….nothing earth shattering or newsworthy here. That isn’t the point though, becoming resolute in improving the life I live is the goal with this list of eight New Year’s Resolutions. If I execute on all of eight of these 2010 ought to be a pretty good year, stay tuned.

Christmas 2009

Its Christmas Day 2009, the sun is shining, not a cloud can be found in the skies over Southeastern Arizona, and the air has the crisp bite of a high desert Winter. Its quiet, peaceful even. This is probably one of the quietest Christmas days I have experienced short of one or two I spent in the middle of nowhere in the Army. I don’t mind a quiet Christmas, this one however doesn’t feel like Christmas much at all.

My lovely wife and I have been searching high and low for the Christmas spirit over the last couple of weeks and have come to the conclusion that 2009 has pretty well beaten most people to a pulp and they are finding more of a need for respite this holiday season rather than the spreading of warmth and cheer. I can identify with that. Thankfully I have my wonderful wife as a teammate through the tough times and the smooth sailing. We have spent the last month or so charting a new course for 2010 and beyond. We are excited to support each other through the building of new businesses, the pursuit of lifelong dreams, and the birthing of new challenges that we look forward to conquering together. I can say that I have never felt so inspired in my life as I do with her watching my back, being incredibly supportive, and being her brilliant self as we forge ahead. Love is an incredible thing.

The bittersweet part of this Christmas comes in not being able to have the entire family together for the holiday. A family friend was recently in a serious accident and could not make the journey, he will be sorely missed at this year’s celebration. My Mom wasn’t able to come down this year and it is the first year she has not been with family for Christmas. I hope both of them will be back with us next year and for the years that follow. This year I found myself missing the members of the church family that we had built at FPCB, it just didn’t feel the same without being able to welcome Christmas gathered in a candlelit sanctuary with so many who exuberantly share our faith. My sister is still M.I.A., she has a long road to go before returning to the family if she ever decides that is what she wants. I pray that she will open her eyes and her heart one day and be able to see those who love her for who they are and be able to live her life without so much anger, rage, and fear. Woooo…this blog is becoming way to much of a downer for Christmas.

This Christmas I am so deeply thankful for my wife and the life that we are building together. Come Super Bowl Sunday it will be two years since our first date. I am thankful for the love of family and friends. I am thankful for the blessing that is the birth of Jesus Christ over 2000 years ago that set into motion the gift of our forgiveness and the celebration of love and relationship with God in this life. Christmas is about love, about sacrifice, about giving. God saw fit to begin his rescue mission to humanity with the birth of a child who would be the savior, the light of the world. So, wherever you find yourself this Christmas, whether it be on a dirt road in India, in an FOB in Iraq or Afghanistan, in the Seattle suburbs sipping egg nog, or in the beautiful Arizona desert just a stone’s throw from old Mexico, I wish you God’s blessing on you and your loved ones and above all I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Hunter S. Thompson Sums It Up…

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” -Hunter S. Thompson

The very reason why I don’t miss the music business in the least!

Supporting The Soldiers & Families Of Fort Hood

I Met Dennis Haysbert Today!

Me and my wife with Dennis Haysbert

Originally uploaded by BorderDisciple

Today I got the exciting opportunity to meet one of my favorite actors, Dennis Haysbert. Dennis was appearing at Fort Huachuca as a part of his personal visits with U.S. troops and Veterans around the world. In the last few years Dennis has traveled to Iraq twice and most recently Afghanistan as a part of the USO. This year Dennis decided that it was time to show his support and love for our troops and Veterans here at home and is visiting several installations across the country.
Aside from Allstate commercials, where have you seen Dennis? I first appreciated him as an actor when he played Pedro Cerrano in the sports comedy classic Major Legue (Hats for bats…). Dennis is probably best known for his roles as President David Palmer in the hit series 24 and as Sergeant Major Jonas Blane in The Unit. Check out Dennis Haysbert’s credits at IMDB.

Dennis spent his time today meeting with troops and Vets before being introduced and brought on stage. when he took the stage, he took the first couple of minutes to express his heartbreak and condolences for the Army Family in the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood. Once he finished his remarks he opened the rest of the time to questions from anyone who came to see him. The questions ranged from humorous, to fan based, to even a female fans request to hear him say….”Are you in good hands?”
Once the Q & A was over Fort Huachuca’s CG Custer came on stage to thank Dennis for his time and then called SSG Jones forward to the stage. SSG Jones is a veteran of three tours in Iraq and a single tour in Afghanistan. SSG Jones is a recipient of two Purple Hearts and the Silver Star for the successful completion of over 300 recovery missions. SSG Jones ceremonially approached the stage bearing a Cavalry Sabre. CG Custer then presented Dennis with the inscribed sword with gratitude for his support of the United States Army.

The festivities didn’t stop there. The Lt. Col. who introduced Dennis reappeared and called for all of the Sergeant Majors on hand to post to the front of the stage. Once the SM’s were in line, Dennis Haysbert became the first person to be promoted to the rank of Honorary Sergeant Major, United States Army. Dennis was pretty intensely moved by all of this. The room erupted with applause and a huge collective “HOOAH!” as everyone rose to their feet. Dennis went on to thank the troops and express his undying support and how humbled he was by the whole affair.

All in all is was a fun way to spend the afternoon as a fan and as a vet. Dennis Haysbert was a pleasure to meet and very obviously had deep affection for ever soldier that he shook hands with and spent time talking to. Very cool.

The Fort Huachuca “Fort Report” on the Dennis Haysbert visit:

Fort Report Dennis Haysbert Visit from U.S. Army Fort Huachuca on Vimeo.

Sierra Vista Herald Coverage

Here are a couple of clips of Dennis in action: