jasonackerman.com

I’m working at Caribou Coffee this morning. Not working AT Caribou… I’m working FROM Caribou. It’s close, it has wifi, and a fireplace. What more could you want? It’s not so bad, unless I end up having to take a trillion phone calls, then it gets obnoxious. Today has been relatively quiet so far. I’ll be diving into some serious design stuff when I get home around lunch time. Hopefully I can focus without getting too deeply distracted by fence stuff.

We’re currently wading through the thought processes that involve finding a church home, and church planting, and such. I’m currently of the mindset that there is a church out there, that doesn’t exist yet, and if we don’t plant it, no one will. This has all kinds of crazy huge implications and thought processes and discussions and such, of course.

And now, I’m going to head home for lunch. I will say this: the weather in Denver is AWESOME. I’m loving it, so far. Though it is a bit too hot for me today, the sun is out and everywhere I go has A/C on the inside. Stay tuned.

a while back, i posted a photo of my desk, complete with witty labels, to show everyone my “workspace”. we spend so many hours in our workspace, and let’s be honest… most of us journal from our workspace, so i again post my challenge (only one person took me up on it before): let us see where you work. here’s my new, updated workspace. click on the photo for a large view, so you can actually read the captions. this is my home office:

now let’s see yours!

From Photo Album – May 25

It sure seems like the last post was left in something of a melancholy mood. Don’t get me wrong, there are struggles and adjustments. But like I said before, each day that passes makes this place just a bit more like home. Saturday, we went to a graduation party for my cousin… this was a time to see a lot of family, some of whom I haven’t seen in 10 years or more. It was nice to be made to feel at home.

Slowly, we’re settling in. The photo link above will take you to a gallery where I’ll be depositing all sorts of pictures as time goes on. Keep checking in.

for anyone that is wondering, my lack of posting the last several days is part of the moving/settling-in process. that and i’m a horrible blogger. but we are here. we arrived last saturday, and have been trying to immerse ourselves in this new place. it’s not NEW, as in ‘never been here before’, but it’s new, as in ‘how long before this feels like home’?

i’d like to share something i wrote on my other blog (which i won’t be using for a while, i just needed a secret place to blog for a bit… all future posts will happen right here in this very space):

i don’t think i was fully prepared for the process of unplugging. plugging in, getting connected, integrating, becoming a part of something, is a long process, like building a bridge. there are phases, steps, gradual movement toward completion, a completion which gracefully never comes.

unplugging is not so. it’s violent. it’s messy. even in the best of circumstances, the pressure of separation is painful. so now we begin this process, to determine the ‘exit strategy’ (that’s such a military term that attempts to clean up the process into something strategic and logical), to figure out the best way to methodically disconnect from everything we’ve wrapped ourselves up in over the past 3 years….

… everything we’re leaving behind are positive things. they’re comfortable things. they are the things that currently define who we are and what we’re about. now we’re going to have to find new things.

and it won’t be like here. for a while, it won’t even feel like home.

you can read the whole thing here if you’d like. but what i quoted there is the gist of it.

now that we’re here, it’s missing the ‘closure’ of transition finally being done. the settling-in process is so much greater.

and on top of that, it’s a rather empty feeling to have nothing to do. i mean, there’s plenty to do, but it’s all inward. there are no small groups to attend, friends to hang out with, people to have coffee with. when it comes down to it, it’s great to be here, and i love it, but i miss our friends. all of them. my daily poker talk with brian and brian and jeremy. walking to the cafe and running into matt or ray, or one of any number of people. worship practices at compass. life group meetings. friday morning coffee with j-wig. and, for the first time in a long time, i had a serious bout of homesickness yesterday. not the ‘oh, i wish i was somewhere else’ kind, but the kind that just aches because i know i am where i belong, but so many people and places i love are somewhere else. the kind that amplifies the distance from family, because i know how much they support us, but at the same time their hearts ache for us to be closer as well. i wasn’t prepared for that to hit yesterday, and i’m not even sure what brought it on.

it’s the unplugging. like i said, it’s violent. it hurts. it’s messy. as much as we intend to stay in close touch with everyone, the fact is, i know how life works. we live over 1,000 miles away, and before long vancouver and compass will be a ‘past life’, so to speak. we will stay in touch, but relationships will be more about catching up and sporadic communication and quick visits. and some people, we’ll lose touch with entirely. and for this i’m sad. but it’s the way of life.

but how long before these fish out of water find a home in this new pond? it’s a surreal life right now, full of startling flashbacks to childhood memories and unfamiliar streets. before long, that will be replaced with familiarity and comfort. i welcome that day with open arms.

today, i feel better than yesterday. (it helps that this weird little sickness i’ve picked up along the way– both from some kind of nose/throat bug as well as from adjusting to this dry, oxygen-challenged climate– is finally starting to fade) the stress of actually making enough money to live is today’s major concern…which is a challenge… it just doesn’t seem like any of the plans are working out, and projects seem to just fall by the wayside faster than i can gather them… we might be looking for full-time work before the summer is out, which is a painful crash to reality for this self-employed geek.

i will say this… the weather is beautiful. daytime sun, afternoon thunderstorms… it’s a pleasant place to be in the spring. we went to a rockies baseball game yesterday, and it is nice to have professional sporting events 30 minutes from our house. i still fully believe what we’ve done is best for our family. there are many opportunities and possibilities hanging out there in terms of being involved in ministry-related stuff again. things are good. it’s just the process that is a challenge.

please help us stay in contact with you. don’t assume that because we haven’t called or written yet that we don’t want to hear from you. the sheer list of people to contact is overwhelming.

and if you ever feel like a vacation to the rockies is something you’d like to do, know that we will do everything in our power to convince you to come, and to make your stay enjoyable. and know that in all likelihood, we’ll do everything in our power to convince you to stay.

i’m sitting at paradise cafe, enjoying the sun and siphoning a free wifi signal to perform this update. i’m really going to miss this place. if i had a photo of it on this computer, i would post it. instead, you get a picture of an old-school cash register from priscilla’s aunt’s house in coos bay. it’s one of those houses that is so eclectic and varied in decor, but uniquely tied to its owner. it’s a very relaxing place.

i spent the last 2 days working on the computer systems up at the fence company, trying to get things in a basic working order before i go. once i’m gone, they’ll either have to hire out or just use the resources they have for general computer issues, so hopefully i left things in manageable shape. i’ll probably just have them collect a long list of tasks for everytime i’m back visiting.

the last couple days have gone by way too fast. working, making last visits with friends (there are a few people that i just wasn’t able to connect with), and getting our stuff together to go. it’s hard to believe that it is finally here. in some ways, it feels a little overdone that we are STILL in vancouver, after this whole process. it seems many people around here have completed the ‘disconnect’, so anytime we run into someone we get the confused look that says ‘are you still here?’ it’s usually phrased as ‘i thought you were moving..?’. yes, we have managed to make this a month long moving process. at this point, i’m just wanting to power through the drive, get to our house, and commence living. i’d call it ‘normal life’, but it will be far from normal, at least for a while. it’s just that there is a lot a adjustment and transition to face on the other end, and i’m ready to face it. i think the kids are ready to have their own space again. i know i am… being homeless and unemployed is fun, but ultimately, it’s nice to have a place to call home.

i’ve also spent the morning sorting out our finances for the move… i’m amazed that it’s going to work out… it won’t be easy, and will require a finely balanced monetary dance to cover everything once we get there, but it seems that it’s going to work out. i’ll be looking for some independent design projects/writing projects/multimedia projects to work on just as a safety net when we get there… if anyone has any leads on such projects, please let me know. it need not be in the denver metro area. i’m set up for basic audio/video production, web design, graphic design, and i’d even be into writing if i could land a paying gig. monsters need paychecks too.

the title of this post comes from a ben harper song, but seemed particularly fitting as i’m sorting out all the tax implications of moving to colorado… we’re moving from a state with a hefty sales tax but no state income tax, and super-cheap car registration fees, to a state with income tax, sales tax, and vehicle-value-based system for car registration. throw on top of that the self-employment stuff, and oy– it’s getting ridiculous. that’s the part that scares me, is that come tax season 2008, if we’re not careful, we’ll be in for a disaster of a tax bill.

i think that’s all for now. i’ll try to post one more time before we hit the road for good.

today is day 10 of the great nomad experiment. we’ve been out of our house in vancouver for 10 days, and will not be in our new denver-area home for approximately another 9 or 10 days. since tuesday, we’ve been here in beautiful bandon, oregon. most of our time has been spent doing absolutely nothing. we finally got the energy up for a trip to the beach this afternoon. by trip, i mean ‘walk’… it’s only a 1/2 mile or so to the beach from the in-laws’ place.

it’s been nice, to simply sit. i’ve done some work, spent some time thinking, mostly about nothing of consequence. but primarily, we’ve just been sitting. i’ve also had plenty of time to get reacquainted with my fujitsu lifebook-n. this thing is quite the computer… too bad it has no use as a mobile machine. it will make a nice ‘permanently-placed-on-a-desktop’ notebook computer.

since there is nothing much to report, i’ll leave you with this photo of my little rebecca, who is mercilessly getting less little every day.

so when i last left the story, we were cruising through wyoming, sunny and 70 degrees, looking forward to a good nights sleep.

as we approached the rocky mountain slopes heading into laramie, we began to notice a bit of snow on the hilltops. then in the fields. then on the shoulder of the highway. next thing we know, it’s getting dark and the wind is blowing and the snow is coming down – sideways, of course – and the trucks on the road don’t mind going 55, while i’m struggling to maintain 40 as we lug up the hills. it wouldn’t be so bad, except everytime we come around a bend, there’s another hill that climbs another several hundred feet, which means we’re getting higher and higher in elevation so it’s only getting colder. before long, it got to where visibility got down to almost nothing, and i had no idea if we were going to make it. when it finally got dark, we had 40 miles to go and everytime a truck blew past, i was afraid the backsplash and wind would push us right off the mountain. nothing like having 48 feet and 25,000 pounds behind you, and no idea if you’ll be able to control it. i felt like i was one minor mistake from flipping the thing over.

3.5 hours later, we had travelled approximately 100 miles, and we rolled into laramie, wyoming. my shoulders and hands ached from being so tense and white-knuckled the whole way in. i have never been so glad to see civilization in my life. at this point, my only goal was to stop the truck and sleep. sleep came easily at the hotel, after some pizza and beer.

the next day, we braved the forboding weather forecast and took 90 minutes to go 50 miles to cheyenne… this time through snow, fog and very heavy winds… but at least it was in the daylight.

from cheyenne, it was just a wet, rainy, windy, nasty cold drive into denver. i got pulled over for going too slow (?!), and then laughed my way the last several miles in. but we finally arrived, on day 4 of the adventure.

sorry for the much more brief version of this chapter (or maybe you’re welcome for it?). we are back in vancouver at dad’s house. i’ve completed my last day at compass, turned in my keys and computer and had the sad/awkward moment of saying goodbye to the rest of the church staff. today we’re heading to bandon for a week before returning for a few days of final loose ends. then, finally, on may 10th, we’ll be on the road to our new life. i’m ready for it to come, the process already feels way too drawn out. probably it’s because we’ve gone through the emotional ups and downs of saying goodbye to all our friends, and now the only thing standing in the way is the last several days with family, and since no amount of family time will seem like enough, we just have to enjoy what we have then go.

but it’s time. we’re ready. ready to not be nomadic. ready to start anew. ready to settle in.

on the bright side, i’m technically homeless and unemployed right now. that’s kinda fun, in a weird way.

at the end of the last entry, we were on our way from boise after a 24 hour delay… but first, let me clarify something. simply picking up a trailer is not a big deal. roll into u-haul, hook it up and go. however, our situation required that the heaviest items from the truck be transferred to the trailer (or, ‘transloaded’, in trucker lingo). now being the good movers we are, all the heaviest stuff (with one exception) was not on the back of the truck, OH NO, it was in the front half of the truck, which meant as dusk approached there we were, with everything we own stacked in the u-haul parking lot, trying to redistribute the load. in about 2 1/2 hours, we finally had things reloaded in the best way we could.

now we’re off. as we approach burley idaho, the rain gets harder, and it finally gets dark. so between the rain, low visibility, tiredness from transloading, and the not-so-well-maintained idaho highways, we chose to stop at a hotel in burley, and get a fresh start on a new day the following day, fully realizing that this makes our flight home tuesday nearly impossible to catch.

we woke up monday morning, with renewed energy and motivation, just glad to be back on the road. the rest of idaho passed with nary an incident, and we moved into utah. the valley heading into salt lake city is simply beautiful. the mountains, the farmland… it was going to be a good day. we passed through utah (and major road construction in ogden), and broke into wyoming about lunchtime. it was here that we began to feel the wind pick up. knowing that windy times were ahead, but feeling good, we pressed onward. there were clouds, even a few spots of rain, but by and large it was very nice most of the day. when we finally made our last fuel stop in rawlins, wyoming, we had been on the road 11 hours and figured a stop in laramie (100 miles further) was a good idea, and once we got there, we’d consider pushing on to cheyenne, if we felt good. the sun was shining bright as it set behind us… our first clue of troubles ahead should have been the patches of snow on the mountain tops… the very mountains we would be crossing in just a few minutes.

and this is where we break. join me in the next post, where you’ll find us fearing for our lives, for hours at a time.

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just a quick update, i don’t have time to write up detailed reports, since i’m on nick’s computer which is on battery power which will only last a few more minutes. and i am also frickin tired and i have to get up early tomorrow to begin the next chapter of the ‘move the monsters to denver’ saga.

Saturday went about as expected, at least for most of the day. We chugged along through the Gorge on a (mostly) windless day, which is miraculous in itself. As we got into Idaho, we began to feel the truck doing some really strange things… mostly just bucking pretty hard, it felt much like a slipping transmission, or maybe a flat tire. So we pulled off the road, and took a good hard look at the tires, and the inside dual tire on the passenger side looked stressed, but not quite flat. so we figured that was our issue, and called in the u-haul people, who promptly sent a tire guy out who promptly pointed out that all the tires were inflated to recommended pressure, and went on their merry way. so we decided to give it another go, and got a mile up the road before the thing just felt undriveable. we turned around, parked in a hotel parking lot, and called u-haul again. they promised a mechanic to inspect the truck… sunday morning, 9:30am.

so we rented a room at the hotel, walked across the street to albertsons for some beer (blue moon spring ale…holy crap was it yummy), and crashed in the room with the beer and tv before falling asleep (having been up since 5am…).

the next morning, the mechanic took the truck for a drive, decided that something was indeed wrong, but it couldn’t be the transmission. we took it to his shop, and after a thorough once-over, decided the truck was simply overloaded. this was bad news. the solution, eventually, was to get a trailer, load some of the heavy stuff from the truck into the trailer, and proceed like that. first we had to run the truck through a scale… nothing like taking our little u-haul through a big truck stop to get to the big scale… but we were indeed approximately 1800 pounds overweight, which explained our problem. so we got the trailer and began to move on, about 24 hours after we stopped in boise.

stay tuned in the next few days for the next part of the story. it gets better, i promise.

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i leave tomorrow, very early, in a truck larger and heavier than anything i’ve ever driven. this makes me nervous.

approximately 36 hours later (including stop times), i will arrive in denver with all of our stuff. this makes me excited.

then on tuesday, i fly back and proceed with 3 weeks of visiting/hanging out/finishing up work/etc before we drive to denver as a family. i’m not sure what this makes me… looney, i guess.

i’ll check back in on monday. until then, pray for me and my large frickin’ truck. pray for my family, being so unsettled is such a challenge.

peace out,
–j.