David Michael Bruno

Change

Finally a non-political post! You will have to forgive me for shifting the focus on my blog back to me. Well, me and the 100 Thing Challenge and consumerism, etc. Certainly it is not that the election warrants less attention now that it is a day past. But while the trajectory of the nation may be changing over the next four years, the course of my own life is changing in the next couple of weeks. A number of new adventures are afoot.

This past week I sold my portion of the company I helped start, ChristianAudio. In all, the decision to move on from ChristianAudio is positive on many levels. Yet I would need to be as dispassionate as an Enlightenment philosopher to not feel some sadness. It is hard to explain if you have never experienced something like it.ChristianAudio was conceived by a very talented businessman who is also a best friend. He pitched the business idea to me five years ago at a Starbucks in Southern California on Monday. By Friday of that week I had gone to part-time at the job I was working. The following week the two of us started meeting early in the mornings and late at night at that same Starbucks to sketch out the business plan. That same week I made the first business contact for our new company. I called Lamb's Players Theatre and arranged a meeting with Dave Heath, who was incredibly gracious and helpful. (Dave has just completed what I believe is the best audio recording of the Bible. He readCrossway's ESV translation beautifully. While I did not have direct involvement in that project, I am so very glad to have planted a seed for it five years ago.) After that first meeting, many more opportunities and friendships developed. I want to talk about all of them now. But I will resist. Over the next, oh I don't know, several weeks? Months? Anyhow, I plan to write a bit about theChristianAudio experience here. And more in the book, because some portion of my motivation for the 100 Thing Challenge has grown out of my experiences helping to start, grow, and ultimately move on fromChristianAudio.

This past week, too, I learned that the first installment of my advance from Harper is getting sent out. Of course there is excitement (and terror) in the reality of being paid to write. Like the experiences at ChristianAudio, this too is hard to explain. About a year ago I set myself a vocational goal: to write and get paid for it by the time I am forty years old. The goal is not an assurance that for the rest of my life I will make a living by writing. It is more of a response to -- dare I say? -- a calling that I cannot seem to get away from at this time in my life. Does a "calling" last a lifetime? I have no idea. But in gritty entrepreneurial language, I have business to take care of. And I am immensely grateful that I have been given the opportunity to pursue it.

Honestly I am excited about the money, too. It is not pittance, but neither is it going to make news in Publisher's Weekly. The amount really is not what has me stirred up. What has me eager is the opportunity to put the money to use in ways that I could not put money to use atChristianAudio, where several other people were involved in each financial decision. The first proposed budget I drew up for ChristianAudio years ago included a line item for charitable donations. We never gave to charities. (To be fair, we gave away tens of thousands of ouraudiobooks . And I am hopeful the company will begin to give some of its money to charity, too.) My desire for any business I am involved in is to give generously. And while I will not yet be able to give generous sums, I can begin to give liberal percentages. Thatfreedom is worth a lot to me. And also the ability to allocate money to savings and to a line item I am calling "enjoyment," which is not exactly the same as "entertainment expenses" that are too often selfish or useless, or both. I do not plan to share specific numbers, but I will outline the structure of my humble writing budget. Over time, I hope it will develop into a "way" of doing business that is sustainable and charitable.

There are a few other changes going on. But the others are a bit harder to explain, having not taken substantive form yet. There will be more to share. All this is enough for now, though. If you've made it this far, thank you. You are kind for reading so many of my words.

Old Life - Same Life: Schemes Continue

So my post about how I've changed got me to thinking about how I've not changed. Confession: I continue to be a stuff schemer.

Stuff scheming goes like this. I want something. But I don't have the money to buy it. And also I already have too much other stuff. So I sell off a bunch of stuff and get the new thing I'm scheming to acquire. There are two problems with stuff scheming.

1. There is no such thing as perpetual motion consumption (Might post on this phenomena soon). Stuff scheming is always a net financial loss.


2. Why cannot I just keep stuff? Why so bored?

So let me just admit that my latest stuff scheme is a surfski. Those things look so cool. There is plenty of "justification" for scheming to get a surfski.

Recently I've been convicted that I have lived in San Diego nearly all my life and have rarely made it to the beach. It's like what happened to me one day about a year after graduating high school. I was driving along and looked up. It was a crisp, puffy cloud day. I could see the mountains in the east. And I was passing this beautiful lake. The sun was shining. And suddenly it struck me, "I live in the most amazing place! Why have I never seen it before?" So recently I've been struck by the fact that I've missed out on the ocean. And I'd like to participate. And I love boats. And so a surfski seems just the thing.

Uh huh. Sure.

Anyway, surfski aside, one thing I've tried to do in order to contain my stuff scheming is to require a period of scheme analysis. Scheme analysis is a time period - at minimum several months, sometimes up to a year. During this stretch of time, I set some goals. For example, if I want some new camping gear because I plan to climb Mount Everest, then I'll need to prove I am actually going to use the new gear by running every day and going for local hikes that push my limits. If after a few weeks of enthusiastic training I peter out, then I hold off on booking my Sherpas.

I'm still undecided on the surfski. Right now my scheme and analysis involve renting a kayak several times and spending more time at the beach in the water. Probably the scheme will not come to fruition for at least six months or more. And if it goes down during the 100 Thing Challenge, I'll have to decide if it is worth giving up some things to acquire at minimum a surfski, paddle, and PFD. Probably not.

We'll see if I keep scheming, and if I'll ever change.

Old Life - New Life: 10 Random Ways I've Changed Over Time

We all change. Granted, some folks are more stubborn than others. Even mules grow up, though. By no means is this a comprehensive list. It's only some random ways I've changed over my first nearly thirty seven years.  Tell me one or two ways you've changed.

Once I watched M.A.S.H. at 4:00, 4:30, and 7:30 every weeknight
Now I have not owned a TV for years

Once I loved McDonald's sausage biscuits for breakfast
Now I've not been near a McDonald's for years

Once (junior high through high school) I didn't read much at all
Now I read quite a bit

Once I fished regularly (lakes, mountains, piers, deep sea)
Now I never fish

Once I played video games every weekend at The Yellow Brick Road
Now I never play video games

Once I thought I might program computers for a living
Now I don't regret dropping out of Pascal

Once I golfed a minimum of once a week
Now I don't play more than once a year

Once I cared about buying a new car
Now I would never buy a new car

Once I shaved my legs and rode my bike 200 miles a week
Now I don't own a bike (though I would if I had more time and money)

Once I cared about being successful
Now I care about being influential

The New guynameddave

Put simply, it is time for a bit of wandering.  What can I say?  I'm restless.  But more, too, than just a restless wanderer.  I like to think of myself as on my way home.  In evangelical Christian terms, to call myself a "restless wanderer on my way home" is a kind of teleological statement of my frustrated and yet hopeful condition. Restlessness comes at me from many angles here on earth: consumer culture, vocational uncertainty, and good old fashioned blog angst, to name but a few.  There are glimpses of home, also.  I'm Augustinian in this regard.  Brief sightings of "home" here and now are symbolic - they point to a better, eternal home.  When the going is good here on earth, it's like an ever-so-quick look into the better joy of eternity once Jesus has put everything to rights.

More practically, what does all that mean for guynameddave.com or StuckInStuff.com?  The simply answer is that I'm going to combine the two blogs.  It just requires too much effort for me to maintain both. Moreover, I'm having trouble keeping boundaries around both.  The two blogs keep creeping into each others' territory.  There are other reasons.

I would like to write better.  At least for me, writing better stories or reviews or commentaries requires writing less and a little bit more.  Less often.  And more words.  I have long-shot ambitions to write for a living, or write once business fortune allows me to write without the stress of earning my daily bread by my written words.

There it is.  The "new" guynameddave will focus on,

Writing: Reviews, Story Telling, Nature Writing, and Family Lore

Entrepreneurial Thoughts: Startup Experiences, Web, Web User

Experience, Random Technology Commentary

Christian Reflections: Justice Ministry, Consumer Culture, occasional

Theological Rant

Photography

Miscellanies: very rare Odds & Ends

Let me finish with this about StuckInStuff.com.  For some time I've been wanting to engender a more positive expression of StuckInStuff.com.  And I still have aspirations for that cause.  I even have a name for it - ChallengeStuff.com.  For now ChallengeStuff will be the category in which I post consumer-culture rants.  Perhaps it will turn into more one day soon.

Thank you for reading.  Dave