I graduated from Plymouth University in 1990 and rejoiced that I would never have to take another exam ever again. In case you couldn't tell, I don't like exams. I am not well suited for exams. And frankly, I don't think that exams like me either. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have taken a couple of tests, but only for really important things like citizenship of the United States, my driving license and my ministerial license.) In terms of academic qualifications I have abstained from taking any examinations. (Again, in the matter of full disclosure, I did consider a masters degree in computer science, but I realized that I knew all that and did not wish to take exams to prove that I know what I already knew.)

Yet, while I dislike exams, I love learning. I love learning about many wide and varied subjects. (Full disclosure time again: technology, lots of technology!) I read books like a fish goes through water and watch educational videos with delight. I had never really given it much thought and certainly had not considered that there was a discernible pattern in all of this. But then I got to thinking about when I did much of this.

One of my habits is to help with the kitchen cleanup on a Sunday evening. Everything in a pastor's house builds up towards service on Sunday and many tasks and activities get left undone the closer it gets to Sunday. Then Sunday arrives, we have service and after the sacred Sunday afternoon nap, we play catchup and clean and tidy. I have developed a habit, perhaps an addiction by now, of listening to TED talks while washing up. Naturally, this is the source of my title for this post.

Monday is the traditional pastoral day off. And this is a great tradition until you get to thinking about it on a Tuesday morning and realize how much you did on your day off.

I made three pastoral phone calls. Filled out a mileage form for recent church business travel. Uploaded two recorded sermons to our online sermon host and linked to them from the church Facebook page. Wrote an article for our church district's newsletter and chose pictures to go with it. (That should get posted today as well.) Visited a family to take them a meal and coo over their newborn daughter. Vacuumed all of the through-ways in the house to get the winter grit and salt up off of the carpets (and the hair, this is a pentecostal house, so there's always long hair on the carpet as well). Put two loads of laundry through and folded it and put it away. Wrote half a chapter for my upcoming book on Apostolic Baptism.

And to wrap all of that up, we had a family night (we call it awesome night) with the children and watched a nice family movie together on the laptop. Plus I baked two batches of kale chips for our snack.

I'm trying something new this week. I'm having an adventure in publishing. This is exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. I've written more words than many people, having blogged before, but I've never written a book. And why write one book when you could write two? Well, one is going to be more of a booklet, but still, it's a real publishable work that I intend to ask people to pay me money for.

I am self-publishing them because that's the cutting edge of where the book market is headed. Many people are increasingly comfortable with reading electronic books, or ebooks to those of us with more inner-geek, on e-reader devices. These devices are not just limited to Nooks and Kindles. Now you can read electronic books on smart phones and tablets including iPads. About the only place that it's difficult to read an electronic book these days is on paper, and even then you can print a copy of your PDF if you really must read from dead tree.

I'm using a service called LeanPub, of which many of you will not have heard, but they specialize in self-publishing electronic books. I've read a few other books from their authors and have been impressed enough that I'm going to try them. The difference with LeanPub is that they promote an agile approach to publishing. This needs some explaining, so settle back and I'll explain what that means.

We've all heard the classic descriptions of different perspectives of a glass of water:

• The optimist sees the glass as half full.
• The pessimist sees the glass as half empty.

But then I got to wondering how many other perspectives I could come up with. Let's see how I do:

Bulldog perception:

Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965)