Taking a chance to see the sights in the Twin Cities with a good friend. After tooling around the Mississippi for a while we chance the views of the many churches in this town. And have a chance to also watch the university track team running by. So there are lots of beautiful structures to be humbled by.

Last year my friend @jraq introduced me to this artist and took me to see his show at the Paramount. Tonight I got a chance to return the favor at The Moore. I took @thatonegirl for some totally bomb empanadas at the Buenos Aires Grill before the show. When we got to the show K'Naan was in full swing. So I got to see a cool new artist and then jam to a recent favorite. Good times.

Fathers Day is a rough one for me. So I went to see a show at the ShowBox for a distraction. And I forgot that every Wallflowers song sounds pretty much the same. Now that's been made really clear. It was a good night anyway.

One of the best parts of seeing shows at the smaller venues is being able to hang with the bands in the bar. Tonight got good and rowdy with @funjessica and a host of fans dancing along with some solid pop punk music. The funniest part of the evening is when it was pointed out how much the bassist looked like @dsummer because of the fluffy hair. The sets were solid and the dancing was awesome. Check them out if they come to your neck of the woods.

It's always cool to see the bands you've been listening to all your life do a righteous set. After a solid heart to heart with @llpeyer, The Offspring is rocking my socks off! They may be old, but they can still bring it!

In a funny turn of events, @llpeyer couldn't get a drink so we stepped out to enjoy a frosty beverage. Let's hope we didn't miss too much of the show. Regardless, I think a t-shirt is in order tonight.

This week the study was on 2 Peter. It's truly a remarkable book for study, and we're just getting started. As I have found to often be the case, you start somewhere moving in a direction and end up taking these little side journeys ending up in completely unexpected places.

The first few verses were no exception for me. It wasn't a big portion of the study, but it has certainly stuck with me more than any other.

So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

--2 Peter 1:12-15

In the first few verses (it only takes 11 actually), the foundations of salvation are outlined. And before we go any further, one point gets emphasized three times in three more versus. The point is that everything that's been laid out, the entire gospel of salvation, the charge of the Christian walk, everything we need for life and godliness are things we already know.

Isn't that just the way it is with most of life? We know what we need to know. We know what's needed to be done. We know how to move forward. We just don't really want to.

We procrastinate and rationalize and whine. But rarely do we just roll up our sleeves and do the work. I see this all the time in my work, and even more often in my personal life. And yes, I mean in myself as well as others. Which is probably why this stood out so clearly to me right now. I've been struggling with motivation a lot lately and watching those I love also struggle with their determination.

Sometimes I think it is not enough to just know what is needed. We have to believe, we have to have faith too. Which is why I think this pit can be a hard one from which to climb out. Intellectually, we can understand the steps. Emotionally, I want to believe myself to be strong of faith. And realizing that what I need most to move forward is an exercise of faith, brings in sharp relief how miniscule and ineffective is my faith. Before I can even get that far, my mental gymnastics steer me off to other more obvious answers to protect myself from facing this harsh reality. Since I don't want to believe my faith is too paltry, I concoct other reasons for my inability to do the needful.

The self-conviction in this post is just rank and overpowering. To have such a clear example of how easily my inner selfishness defeats my reason, my conscious desire, and my supposed wisdom is humbling in the extreme. Good thing Peter faced this first so I'd have his letters to instruct me how to un-stick things.

You know you are having one of those days when you're writing code like this:

select top 5
(select substring(text, (statement_start_offset / 2 ) + 1, ((case when statement_end_offset = -1 then len(convert(nvarchar(max),text)) * 2 else statement_end_offset end ) - statement_start_offset ) / 2 )
from sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle) ) AS statement
,last_worker_time
,total_worker_time
,last_elapsed_time
,total_elapsed_time
,execution_count
from sys.dm_exec_query_stats
order by last_elapsed_time desc

This technique of pulling from query stats is great for finding those nasty performing culprits, especially in environments when you can't just attach a profiler.

In case you were wondering, I use queries like this instead of sp_who or sp_who2 because it's specifically grabbing the statement that is executing not just the batch.