Hello all,
I have decided to come back to writing my blog. I have had a lot of ups and downs over the past few months, and I will write about them shortly. I intend to revamp my blog site, so once that is done I will seriously focus on keeping up the blog. I hope you will enjoy reading about my thoughts and experiences.
My best,
Andrew D. Gadtke

Hello all!

Wow, I haven't blogged in quite some time. Nothing much is new with me, except that I have been doing really well and am quite healthy. I have been watching the Australian Open tennis tournament quite a bit. Perhaps due to my excitement about the tournament, I have been also playing tennis too; it is my new hobby, and hopefully it will help me get back into shape.

That's it for now, but I will write again soon if anything comes up.

I haven't written in a while because I have been so busy promoting and selling this book. I keep trying to get back to blogging more, but something is always coming up.

I got back from Atlanta, GA on Thursday night. I was there earlier this week at the National CIT Conference. It was a good conference, and I'm glad I attended—I made many contacts that will help me get the book out. The acronym CIT statnds for Crisis Intervention Team, and it is the specialized police officers who respond to mental health crises calls. It is very important to have these specially trained officers on the police force, both for the safety of the mentally ill as well as the responding officers.

Right now I'm thinking about the next book I write, and while I have plenty of ideas, I don't have the topic down in stone just yet. There are about three or four topics I'm debating writing on, and I will just have to see what the next one will be in the coming days.

That is about it for me at the moment. I will write again later today if I get a chance.

I was pondering some questions today, inspired from some books I have been reading, and I decided I would post them all here for you to read. Enjoy

Question 1: Imagine you are in a room and you hear a loud explosion of noise. Would you think the noise had a cause, or did it just happen by itself without a cause?

Question 2: Imagine you are out hiking in the woods and you come across what appears to be a painting of a building, fully framed and everything. Would you think someone painted the object, or did it  come about from natural forces, say the wind blowing throught the trees and leaves?

Question 3: Imagine an innocent child is tortured. Is that wrong? Is it wrong just for you, or would it be wrong if anyone did that?

I'm wondering how your answers to these questions affects your current worldview. Is your worldview in line with your answers, or are there inconsistencies. Just something to ponder.

My answers:

Answer 1: Of course I would think it has a cause, even if I didn't know what the cause was. I'm wondering why people who don't believe in a causeless little bang would believe in a causeless big bang.

Answer 2: I would think that object I found was a painting that had a painter. It is the design of the painting (like that of the world) that shows me that there is an intelliegent designer.

Answer 3: I think it is wrong, not just for me but for everybody. That means there is an absolute moral law in place, and therefore and absolute moral lawgiver.


Well, those are my answers, how about yours?

Well, well, well . . . I got back from Grand Rapids on Wednesday afternoon. I was there at two appearances (one at the community college and another at the public library). It all went okay. I had driven up there on Tuesday morning, and both appearances were on Tuesday, so the first one I felt I didn't have all that much enthusiasm (I fear it made the students feel I was bored with the topic), and the second one went okay but I messed up the ending big time. I basically started rambling and then quite talking. The reason for the mishap in the second speech was that I had prepared about 45 minutes worth of material, and I was trying to cut it down to 30 minutes on the fly—while I was actually giving my speech. So, I left out a bunch of stories, but during the talk I realized that stories I left out were prerequisits for understanding the ending, and so I couldn't go with the ending I had prepared. It was a terrible speech really, but the content was good and the audience was even better, so they were quite forgiving. And while I was there I sold some books.

Previously, on Sunday, I bought an electric guitar. I have been playing pretty much nonstop. On Sunday I played for about thirteen hours, getting blisters all over my fingertips in the meanwhile. But now the blisters are pretty much gone and I'm getting calluses. That is great. And I'm writing a song. It isn't all that good, but it is my first attempt so I won't be too tough on myself.

Other than that not too much is going on with me. I was out for a coffee earlier tonight, and while out I saw about six different beautiful women. It was quite the sighting! But it made salient in my mind how lonely I actually am. I need a woman to share my life with so desperately. So, I went from the coffee shop to the bar to get drunk. I had a few drinks but didn't get drunk, and now I'm back in my condo. I have been playing the guitar for the past hour, and now I'm just listening to love songs and feeling lonely. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Well, I have been so incredibly busy that I haven't had even a second to blog, but I'm going to try to do a better job of that this month.

I was intervied on the KAXE morning radio show this morning, and I have posted the audio. KAXE is broadcasted up in northern Minnesota. The segment was supposed to be between seven and ten minutes, but it ended up lasting eighteen minutes, which is huge in broadcasting time. I'm just thrilled with how things went. Also, the morning show ends at 9:00AM, but we went past that into the next show's time slot. Wow, I'm so thrilled I've been on edge and flying high all day.

Here is the audio for the interview on KAXE radio.

Download | Duration: 00:18:08

I hope you enjoy this one!

Day two of the conference is over for me. The first day felt really long, but this day did not, even though I suppose it was technically longer. I key thing is that I'm having a tremendous amount of fun promoting and selling my book. What is so enjoyable about this is that people are reading it and coming back to tell me how much they are enjoying the book. It is always so great to hear that I'm touching people's lives with my efforts.

I went outside for a smoke many times today, but one time I was outside I saw a woman, who had purchased my book earlier, sitting down in the sun reading it. What a thrill to see! I have been so apprehensive about coming out with this book, but now all my worries are passing away.

The interaction with the people and the selling is fun too. What a nice way to spend a day. Since autumn is my favorite time of year, I suppose I would much rather be at a coffee shop somewhere sitting outside, but as work goes, this is quite fun.

At this conference I have developed several leads in terms of speaking opportunities. That is also good, and in the down-time I have been working on another speech. This one will be more inspiring in nature (or so I hope!). I have the idea of what I want to talk about in my head, and I think this one will be a good speech. In every speech I give, I try to let the audience think, laugh, and cry. If I can accomplish all of that in a single speech, then I know I have really done my job. It isn't easy, but boy is it fun when it goes well—and it goes well when I'm well prepared. Therefore, I'm trying to get this next speech written ASAP so I can be well prepared. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Earlier today (or I suppose it is technically yesterday) I drove up to Duluth for a conference hosted by Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs. It should be a pretty large, state-wide conference, and I'm here as an exhibitor to promote and sell my book. I think there will be around 1000 people in attendence, so perhaps this will be a very good conference for me.

I didn't know how the drive up here was going to be, but I found it extremely enjoyable. I drove alone, and because of that, I could listen to the music of my choice and  could stop whenever I wanted to on that way (only once did I stop . . . McDonald's). It was much better than car trips with the family when I was younger, and it was a million times better than the flight back from Las Vegas yesterday.

Because I got back from Vegas so late/early yesterday, I didn't get much time at home before I had to leave this past afternoon. It was enough time to  recoup from the Vegas trip though, so all is good. Usually when I go on vacation with any of my family members, I need about a week of "vacation" once I get home just to relax from having to be around them quite so much. Such wasn't the case this time, however, and I'm am doing well. I'm thankful for that.

It is only a little after three in the morning, and so I have nothing that I can really do. I would like to head out to a coffee shop, but alas, they are all closed. I didn't see any in the area that have outdoor seating anyway. I'll have to keep my eye out for that, because I love sitting outside in the fall and having a coffee and a smoke. Well, I love that anytime, but especially in the fall. Additionally, I didn't get a smoking room here at the hotel, so any time I want to smoke I have to go down to the lobby and outside. I guess it will cause me not to smoke so much.

I'll write some more later and let you know how the conference is going.

Hey all,
I haven't written in a few days because I have been out of town. My father and I decided to go to Las Vegas for the weekend. It wasn't as enjoyable as I thought it would be.

While I didn't think it was going to be an excellent time, I was looking forward to seeing some stand-up comedy acts. However, soon after arriving I took ill with what I think was a mild case of food poisoning. Not good at all. So, mostly I just stayed in the condo and relaxed—and I missed the stand-up shows.

And I have to tell you this: boy, was it hot. Every day was around 100 degrees, and today was 103 or so. It is a dry heat, and so it doesn't feel as bad as when it is 100 in Minnesota, but it is still uncomfortable. My ideal weather is about 55 and overcast though, so you might have to take my opinion with a large grain of salt. Maybe I will go back sometime in the winter. I know now not to go during Minnesota's autumns though, for that is the best time of year.

I suppose I should go to bed. I have a lot coming up this week, and I will write about it at a later time.

I gave a speech earlier today. Well, I suppose now it was technically yesterday. Although I was pleased with the content of the speech, I gave what was probably the worst delivery of my young speaking career.

You see, the speech was really last minute, and I didn't have time learn the points I wanted to make. Therefore, I had notes with me (actually, the entire speech written out—this is not usually recommended by professional speakers) that I had to use, but because I was so unfamiliar with mny speech, I found myself looking at my written remarks too much.

To add insult to injury, I started choking up early on during the speech, and the tears in my eyes caused me difficulty making eye contact with the audience and difficulty reading my notes. I ended up basically starting down at my notes and viritually just reading my speech. The entire time I knew how poor my delivery was, and all I wanted was it to end as quickly as possible. I think that caused me to speech more quickly as well. In the very least, I wasn't reall nervous at all, just frustrated with myself as I was delivering my remarks.

It ended well though, for after I concluded, I received a standing ovation. That was nice, but I was a little to frustrated with myself to enjoy such a nice display by my audience.