Live stats are now live! You can go to calebunseth.com/freemeals anytime you want and get up-to-the-friggin-second stats on how many free meals I’ve had for the current month (and which meal of the day it was). In the near future I will also be adding a section that recognizes those who have won free meal related awards. Maybe you can be on that list someday!

This little guy and I became friends at the camp I was at in Russia in July 2009. We couldn’t understand each other, but we had tons of fun. He loved to run around and play tag, or show me the latest bug he had just caught. The last couple days of camp, his parents had gotten him a little wooden model of a deer. All the pieces had been cut out, but it needed to be put together. We spent a while trying to do that, but didn’t get very far. At the end, when I had to leave, he gave it to me and asked me to finish it. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive the trip, so I never was able to do so.

Jeff went over to the camp this year, and I told him that if he saw Bogdan (pronounced “bug-don”) at camp, to say hi for me. When I got back from Albuquerque yesterday, I went into my office and Jeff had left a drawing that Bugdon had done for me. I’m not gonna lie–I got a little misty-eyed

I bought a new desk yesterday and proceeded to assemble it in my office, and then rearrange everything. Here is a video tour (I made it using my iPhone 4) which explains all the new functionality of my office:

I love computers, and I love photography, but honestly, my favorite hobby is what I refer to as Roadside Assistance. I get really excited when I see a vehicle up ahead with its hazard lights on, because this almost always means I get to at least pull over, flip on my lights, and see if they need any help (In case you don’t know, Bruno is equipped with a 17″ amber LED emergency strobe light).

Recently I’ve had a bit of a dry spell in not finding anybody to help, but this weekend changed that. Saturday afternoon I had been out at Triple L Ranch. I was coming home on I-20 near Walmart when I saw a truck pulled over. I pulled up to see if they needed help. Turned out, I knew a few of the guys from church and MCA. The truck was leaking fluid (I believe they determined it to be coming from the front differential). They decided to try and drive it to their destination, so I followed them down the service road for a little ways to make sure they were ok. After they waved me off, I turned around and headed back to a van along the interstate that had a flat tire. It was a young mother with her two kids. Another fellow had already stopped and was starting to jack up the vehicle, so I helped by getting the lug nuts off. In less than 5 minutes she was on the road again. I kids felt like a NASCAR pit crew member.

After the flat tire change, I was heading back down the service road to get back on the interstate when I spotted a pickup truck stalled along the road. They didn’t have any hazard lights, and it was dusk, so I pulled up behind to offer them safety and see if I could help. The father and son were working on the engine and diagnosed it was a fuel filter issue. Meanwhile, the young boy inside the truck talked and talked about where they were going, and that the truck had just stopped, and about the Cheetos he was eating. He was hilarious. The father got the truck running and since they didn’t live far away, they headed back home. I continued back onto the interstate and then came across a blown out semi tire in the middle of the road. It wasn’t just a chunk of it…it was the whole thing. It was getting dark and I knew it was a large road hazard. I pulled over, got out, waited for traffic to clear and then ran out and pulled the tire off the road and left it in the ditch.

So, on Saturday, all within about a 1 mile stretch of I-20, I made 4 different stops. It was pretty awesome.

Today, I was coming back from the Ranch again, and had just gotten off I-20 onto the Loop on the west side of Midland. I spotted a vehicle on the service road with its hazards on, so I pulled around and stopped. Turned out, it was a family heading back home to Dallas, and they had run out of gas. Their relatives were just a couple of minutes away with some gas, so I waited. They arrived, we got the fuel in, and the van started right up. I followed them to the next as station a couple of miles away, just to make sure they made it safely.

The funniest part is that almost every single person I help asks me if this is my job. When I tell them that I’m a computer tech and this is just a hobby, I usually get a weird look. It happens the same way almost every time. Nonetheless, I love it and thank God that he allows me to enjoy it, and keeps me safe.

June welcomed itself into Midland by rumbling through later in the evening. I spent about an hour taking pictures. I loved this resulting one. You can click on the image for a larger version.

The month of May 2010 has come to a close and with it, a new record has been set. This month, I received 26 free meals. This breaks the previous record of 25, which was set in October 2009.

You can view all the stats here.

This is a logo I designed for a local band, The North Forty. I just ordered business cards for them, so see if you can scrounge one up from members of the group.

Recently, I discovered that I’m developing a desire to know and understand introverts. Not only to understand myself, but to be able to help introverts around me, and also to be able to help extroverts understand introverts–especially in how it relates to Christian community. I wrote out the following paragraphs and then came back and typed up this introduction because I realized that there is an opportunity with this topic to not only challenge myself to continue to process my thoughts through written form, but also to challenge others. For this reason, I’m going to attempt to publish more in the future (hence the “Part 1″). I have no idea when Part 2 will be released, but you can pray that it happens sooner than later. I also included questions at the bottom to help make this material more applicable to you–whether you are an introvert or an extrovert.

Let me begin by letting you know where some of my ideas have been coming from, and also what is fueling this desire in me to learn more about introversion. I’ve already read The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World (loved it), and I’m currently working through Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture (written from the perspective of an introverted pastor). I’ve also got The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

Something that my brain has been working through recently is the idea that introverts can be abused in relationships, but, also can be the abusers. It’s very easy for one-way relationships to develop as introverts tend to be excellent listeners. This can create a situation where extroverts, typically, can be abusing an introvert by always making themselves the center of attention (sometimes the extrovert may not even be aware that they are doing this). There are other ways for introverts to be abused beyond just the one-way relationship, but I don’t have a strong enough grasp on those concepts yet to go into those (part 2 maybe?)

Introverts can also abuse others by becoming selfish with their energy. I’ve personally found that I can be found guilty of abusing the “need to recharge” at times, in order to ignore developing relationships that may not be easy to do. While it is important for me, and all introverts, to set aside time to recharge, it’s equally as important we are involved in other’s lives. Certainly there are some people who are more introverted than others, and each one of us has a different sized “energy tank,” but I believe it’s our tendency to not try and see just how far we can go before our tank runs dry. In car, it’s a bad idea to run out of fuel, but introverts aren’t cars. We are people. And I think our “energy tank” can be more appropriately compared to muscles in our body. Certainly, our muscles have limits, but if we work them and strain them, they will develop more and more stamina. I think the same concept applies to introversion. If we choose to push our energy limits, our “tank” can grow larger–or we can learn to burn the fuel more efficiently. We also can’t leave God out of this. He is fully capable of providing us with energy reserves that we cannot access through our own human power.

If you’re feeling abused in a relationship, there is no better way to handle it than with prayer and boldness. Pray that God will give you choice words, and then be bold and discuss the problem with the other party in the relationship. If you feel you are abusing another, you need to apologize. Prayer also needs to be involved as you ask God to grant you the necessary energy to love the other person.

Introverts:

• What relationships in your life are you abusing?
• What relationships do you feel you are being abused in?

Extroverts:

• Same questions apply to you, as to the introverts.

I’m certainly stumbling my way through all this, and it’s by no means wholly accurate. I encourage you to offer your thoughts and opinions regarding what I’ve written about above, whether through written form, or in a verbal discussion.

Wednesday night, Midland went under a severe thunderstorm warning around 10:30pm. At about 9:30pm, I had gone out to try and take some pictures of the lightning. I was able to get some pretty good pictures (as shown below), before the wind suddenly kicked up. Any, and all, loose dirt on the ground was blowing everywhere. I had been taking pictures near MCA, and so I drove under the canopy of the pickup area in front of the Grammar school building. After the top-layer of dirt and blown away, the wind stayed strong. The rain then came in about 10:55pm was when the hail started. It was pretty incredible how much came down, as well as the size. Official spotters within the city reported various sizes, including .75″ and even 1″ diameter hail.

Here are the best pictures I got of the lightning:

Here is a video that I captured with my iPhone while taking shelter under a metal shelter. The hail was deafening (as you can hear in the audio), but I was able to capture a sweet lightning strike. I would suggest turning down the volume on your computer before pressing play.

You can view the radar loop from Wednesday and see the storm really get ugly about 10pm.

I took this screenshot of two headlines from mywesttexas.com. The first story is about how the City of Midland is choosing to reward the Sports & Entertainment Association of Midland for burning through their $135,000 budget in eight months by giving them even more money to burn. The second story highlights the state having an $18 billion deficit. While not necessarily directly related, it’s poor financial decisions like these that have helped lead us into our current state of financial difficulty.

Links to original stories:

http://mywesttexas.com/articles/2010/05/12/news/top_stories/council.txt

http://mywesttexas.com/articles/2010/05/12/news/top_stories/texas_18_billion_budget_shortfall.txt