andrew dodson

I’ve changed the name of my time off from work this week. Instead of it being “one week’s vacation,” I’ve dubbed it, “one week’s productivity.” This is in keeping with my 2006 motto (read below). Today was “get organized” day.

My desk at my apartment has been severly unorganized all year long, so I decided to get a handle on that first. If I have an organized workspace, it will be much more likely that I will be productive. I also straightened up my apartment. It’s kind of late right now (11:28 p.m.), but I’m thinking about tackling a couple of other projects before bed - cleaning the bathroon and washing dishes.

I also spent part of the morning making up a To-Do List in iCal (Apple’s simple-yet-awesome calendar program). I hope to start crossing items off the list starting tomorrow. In the works is several website projects (updates and redesigns), recording projects, and personal things like getting my truck’s oil changed. I’m spending part of the day tomorrow at CLS to get ready for 2006.

It will be a busy week, but I’ll be very glad to get a lot of things done.

I’m officially announcing my motto for 2006 - Potential: Reached.

In the past several weeks, I’ve been disappointed in myself. The only place I feel I’ve come remotely close to reaching my full potential has been at work. However, I still think I’ve fallen well short of what I could achieve. Personally, I feel I’ve dropped to new lows on the Potential Meter. Most notably, I’ve been extremely lazy.

This may sound strange, but a reality TV show caused me to realize the talent and abilities I’ve been wasting not only lately, but all throughout my life. Thanks to The Apprentice, I’ve found a new sense of motivation to achieve more.

All my life, if I’ve heard one thing more than anything else, it’s this: “You have a lot of potential.” Merriam-Webster defines potential as, “capable of development into actuality.” If we’re talking potential, we’re talking about things that could happen, but haven’t happened yet. I’m tired of not turning the “capable” into “actual” in my life.

God has blessed me with an extreme amount of talent in several areas, and I’ve ridden the potential of these talents for too long. I’ve not been diligent in nuturing and exercising these talents. This will not be the case in 2006.

As of tomorrow, December 27th, I will have operated this blog for one year. It’s been a lot of fun to get on here and fill everyone in about my life, share some humor, provide links to interesting things on the web, share photos, and perhaps most important - post about God’s Word and Christian topics.

In celebration of one year of blogging, I’ve revealed the new theme for my blog, called “Impact.” It’s a pretty good design that I downloaded from the fine operators of my blog software - Wordpress.

The argument can be made that I’ve been blogging for more than a year - I’ve operated a personal website for nearly three years, which I updated fairly often with similar articles as this blog. Except, the posts were in a lowly HTML website format, instead of the dynamic, flashy blog style.

What’s to come in 2006? Well, I’d like to blog every single day. I’ve gotten out of the habit lately, and several folks have let me have it (mom and Dennis Raleigh to name a couple). So, for the fine folks who like to read this nearly every day, I’d like to keep the blog fresh with new information. To help with this, I’ve started keeping a list of ideas for new blog articles. I already have several for today lined up, and there’s several more that I won’t get to. These will be posted in the coming days.

Also, I’ll be sharing more personal devotionals, Bible verses, and studies that I’ll experience. I feel this blog is a great place to tell others about my spiritual walk and growth. Lately, God has been revealing more and more to me about heavier topics than when I first became a Christian. It’s all part of the maturing process that will continue for the rest of my life.

In general, you can still expect the typical posts - catching you up on my life, some humor & photos, stuff about music. Most of all, I think you’ll see more of me standing on my soapbox. After all, this is my blog. I pay for the domain name. I’ve been a little gunshy to this point, but it’s time to come out of my shell a bit. Should be interesting!

I highly encourage everyone to keep an eye on the Josh Martin Band blog each week. Not because I’m in the band (though I do chip in with a post on the blog every now and then). But, each week, Josh puts a devotion up. Over the next few weeks, he will be looking at four topics:

-Scripture alone
-Grace alone
-Faith alone
-Christ alone

You can also read through the archives of previous devotions. Go check ‘em out…

the Josh Martin Band blog

We had our first snow of the year today. Technically, we can say it was the first snow day, but in reality, it was more of a sleet and rain day. At the current late hour (1 a.m.), it’s getting colder and things are icing over. Should make things interesting for people driving around in the morning. Be careful! Drive slow!

Hey Eastsiders - I’ve got a proposal for you. Next time you need to make a run to the hardware store, please consider going to Lyons in Brighton Park. Try to not consider the long drive across town to megastores like Lowes and Home Depot. Here’s why:

I decided to stop by Lyons tonight to buy a snow shovel for an apartment-dwelling friend that is snow shovel-less. Her landlord doesn’t come around to shovel snow and ice. The business hours showed they didn’t close until 8, but with the inclimate weather, they decided to close up shop a little early. I didn’t discover this until a tug on the door was unsuccessful, due to the door being locked. As I walked away, an older man (maybe the owner?) came walking to the front, unlocked the door, and let me in. He was happy to assist me in my snow shovel buying experience, even though he’d already closed for the night.

You have to appreciate small businesses. As an employee of one, I can say we’d do the same as this gentleman tonight. In fact, we often don’t lock our doors once business hours pass. We’re there for a while after closing time, so we figure we might as well leave the doors open in case someone shows up to give us some business. I can’t say the megastores would do the same.

We’re coming upon my favorite time of the year. Yeah, there’s the whole Christmas and New Year’s thing, which play a big part in why I like this time of year. But, the biggest reason has to do with CLS shutting down for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Not only do I get to enjoy the holidays, but I get an entire week off from work. I can catch up on projects (recordings, websites, apartment stuff, etc.), read a book or two, hang out with family & friends - all sorts of stuff. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ll be changing the look of my blog in the very near future. The problem is, there’s too many choices. I’m narrowing down which theme I want to use next.

With the temperature changes that we’ve experienced the last few weeks, it seems as though everyone is coming down with a cold, or something worse. I’ve been lucky so far - I think I dodged a bullet last week. To this end, I’d like to present some words of wisdom from my college band director - Dr. Pete LaRue. This is what I like to call “Dr. Pete’s Common Sense Methods to Prevent Sickness.” I generally do all of these, and for the most part, I stay fairly healthy (I honestly don’t remember the last time I went to the doctor because of sickness).

1. Wash your hands.
2. Get some sleep.
3. Eat something.
4. Drink orange juice.
5. Take vitamins.