Rick Beeman

Another interesting day. I found out first thing that one of the two big contracts we were waiting on, we got. So that’s a huge blessing. Here I was worried about the financial health of the company and now we are having a historic month. Our bank balance was so dangerously low just a few weeks ago. I was really committing it to prayer, as that was the only thing I knew to do. I remember God spoke to me very clearly about two months ago. He said the company would get by, by the skin of their teeth to Ramadan, then when Ramadan would hit it would be crazy busy. Well…I didn’t expect it so soon…but it happened today. Today we just completed the first biggest contract in KSDi history, and delivered it today. When they issue the check in a few weeks that will be a huge windfall…Im midway through the second largest contract in company history, and I just booked, what I believe the third largest contract in company history. All this happened in the span of about an hou...

I know I’ve been gripping a lot lately. So I did the only thing I knew to do in situations like this. “Seek God first…” Its amazing that really works. So I cried out to God…God this sucks, I don’t like it, not one bit, but I know you have a plan, so teach what you are supposed to teach and help me endure. You see God doesn’t always answer the prayer in the manner we want, but he does give us the strength to accept whatever answer he may give us. I think this past weekend was all about driving me to my knees to really seek him. You know what it worked. Today was a much better day. I reconnected with an old cyber friend I haven’t chatted with in awhile. Its cool, because the Holy Spirit gave me the exact words for her. Its so incredible to be used of God to help out another that is in distress. Because logic tells you, if he cares enough to use you to help someone else, don’t you think he’s going to take care of my problems as well? It was also neat that whil...

It is a strange feeling nearing the end of your weekend and being glad its almost over. Its so backwards from the rest of normal society. I take solace in the fact that its partly because I love my work so much, but its also that Im just glad the alone times are over. I hope I don’t sound too pitiful whining about my being alone. My life is actually quite interesting. I really have been using the time to really seek out God. That’s what these periods are for I believe. I know God will see me through this, because He has saw me through everything thus far. I’m extremely confident that this period of solitude in my life in nearing an end. He has given me a date in my head, and thus far, every date he has given me has been 100% accurate. So its still just a matter of waiting on the Lord. I know I have a finish line, and I can see it up ahead. But still its like Im in mile#24 of a marathon. There are only 2.2 miles to go but Im tired, my legs are cramping up and...

Weekend are the hardest for me. I think I busy myself enough in the week with the routine to keep from remembering that Im alone. I do have a great life out here, but the reality is that I go to sleep alone and I wake up alone. I don’t get how people that are called to a life of being single can do it. I know I’m not going to be alone forever. In fact God has already given me a date in my head, but it’s the waiting that is the hard part. I just want to learn what I’m supposed to learn so He’d hurry up already. Last night was a strange experience. There were about 15 people over, all my very good friends and cast members. There were lots of laughs (they were comedians) and everyone had a great time. They stayed for three-four hours. I was glad to be a host. These people that were here were good friends that really hold me in high regard as I hold them in high regard. So I do have plenty of friends here. But that accentuated what I don’t have. I don’t hav...

What a nice day it turned out to be. We had an early morning meeting at the Bahrain National Museum. Its always good to get documentary footage from museums. So I talked with the museum director, who happens to be a nephew of Khalifa’s (that always helps) and they are going to open their archive up to us. So that project is going extremely well. Then Tarek and I had another meeting across town at 3. An advertising agency wants to use us to put together a promo video for another Government agency. The good news is that the type of video they are looking for I’ve done my entire career. It’s a short, look how great we are video. It just so happens Im really good at putting those together. I came back from the meeting a little early. I tried to get in some early Ramadan shopping. I heard that Ramadan is supposed to be August 20. No one really knows for sure, since its based on the moon schedule. But when Ramadan hits all the restaurants and stores will be ...

Another day of God’s favor. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve this, or am I just lucky…or extremely blessed. We had a meeting with Bahrain TV today. They called me to set it up. This is to get footage for our History of Bahrain Seaports documentary. They have over thousands of hours of footage in their archives. Our contact was a great admirer of Khalifa as he has shot a lot of footage in their archives. Khalifa is like a media rock star here. I was a little worried about this project at first, because there just weren’t a lot of crews circa 4000 B.C. in Bahrain. So I knew I was going to have to be creative. Well Bahrain TV already found the footage that I needed. They have boats and seaport footage from 1930. Pearl divers from the 50’s in color, and loads of 70’s footage as well. It was like one stop shopping. The funny thing is, I tried to license Hamad and the Pirates from Disney about two months ago. That film you might remember me blogging star...

OK, a little bit of a dose of my own medicine. I keep telling people all the time that God speaks to me. He does, regularly. OK, now I have an important decision. Its really a yes-no decision. Poof…the voice is gone. How does that happen? Im sure God will answer me eventually? I haven’t put a lot of time into seeking him just yet. I just thought the answer would come off the top of my head. I’ve found when I have really tough decisions to make, the best course of strategy is to fast. Somehow fasting really clears your head so you can hear God ultra clear. The problem at the moment is still recovering from my cold and Im not sure if going without food will exacerbate the illness. Im holding off on Kayaking for the last few days as I want to get 100%. I have this philosophy. That as long as you are living your life right, whatever you choose (Generally) will be in God’s will because of the provision of Romans 8:28. If its not God’s will for you to go down a certain path a...

A good day all around. I’m feeling about 75% there and thankful that I have more energy each and every day. You really don’t appreciate your health until you don’t have it anymore. In fact do you appreciate anything until its taken away? Its interesting how easy it is to become complacent. You adjust your lifestyle to your circumstances, financial, emotional, spiritual, then have a tendency to stop thinking about it. I think that is why its so mentally healthy to do a regular inventory of the things which you are thankful for. It grounds you in so many ways. I am very thankful for the things that I have. I was so proud of my staff today. Im trying to instill so many production value aspects into them. I am very blessed to have the staff that I do have. Many of them are quite skilled and dedicated. One of the things I’ve been harping on them since I arrived have been deadlines. I’m trying to turn our company into an ultra-efficient production machine. On...

I felt better today. Im not 100% yet, more like 50%. So I had to conserve my energy. I had to let it out in spurts. Tarek, our new sales manager had set up an important meeting this morning. So I had to come into work. Otherwise I probably would have stayed in bed most of the day again. So took it easy in the morning. I just remember the drive out there, I was feeling quite feverish, the cold sweat kind. But I tried to push through. We had the meeting and it actually was quite good. Now Im not sure if Tarek was sucking up to me or not, but he said he wanted to take me on a few more sales calls so he could learn from my style. Ive never really considered myself a salesman before. In fact, I don’t like sales at all. One of the greatest salesman I’ve ever known was my father, but he was an atypical insurance salesman. His methodology would be to be completely honest with people. If he couldn’t get them a good deal he would tell them so and advise them not...

Well Im feeling a little better today. It is frustrating just not able to do your normal activity. But I feel so fortunate that it happened on a weekend. I was able to just sleep it off, be totally lazy. I had a little bit more energy today than yesterday. I was able to eat two small meals, which was good. There just wasn’t much to talk about. I almost admitted I was bored, but not quite. I looked at the positives at the opportunity to rest and the blessing that I didn’t have to do anything. But that got me thinking. Since I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve been bored once. That is kind of amazing when you consider that I live alone and came here knowing no friends or family. I’ve been able to thrust myself into so many situations. I thrive when Im out with people. But I’ve also learned to thrive when I’m isolated, like this weekend for example. I am actually very addicted to this computer…my life would be wholly different without it. This is my link ...

This is going to be a short blog tonight. Of course whenever I write that it always turns out it regular length anyways. I have been fighting this major flu bug, I hope its not swine flu. I had to skip church today as this thing really wiped me out. I had the chills in the Middle East…is that even possible? It was a strain to even get out of bed to take my medicine. I haven’t left my couch for more than 20 minutes. I haven’t been able to eat much. I dragged myself out of the flat and went to Burger King and only managed to get about half a whopper down. If you know how much I like Burger King you know that it is serious. I hate being an invalid like this, but I just feel out of it. I hope it isn’t the swine flu, that is spreading here now. So keep me in your prayers because I feel pretty dang lousy. If there is a silver lining to this, it hit during the weekend, so Im not missing any work. I just can’t think or type straight…hopefully tomorrow will be better. I don’t lik...

Im not really sure what the answer is to that. It’s a weekend night, (fri.night equivalent) and Im comfortable not going out. I do have a lot of friends on the island, but I don’t think I would want to hang with them. This is such a contrast to how I was even a year ago. If I were to be home, I would consider myself a failure, because I would be reminded I was alone. Now, I might be alone, but Im not lonely. I think this is a season in my life where Im acclimating to being alone and having that intimacy with God. I went to Fuddrucker’s again, I probably go there 3 times a week. I bring my laptop and watch an episode of Heroes, or Lost with my headphones. Im perfectly content with that. On the outside, it seems a little sad and weird. But it feels normal to me. I have plenty of interaction with my staff during the week, meetings with people and the acting teaching, or Comedy shows. I get out socially quite a bit because of that. But I guess I don’t have tha...

It was a very strange day for me. I was grumpy most of the day. I don’t get grumpy or annoyed that often, so it was a rather unique experience for me. Now the good thing is that I didn’t lash out at anybody. I like to think of myself as being self-aware so I made sure I didn’t channel any of my frustration unnecessarily. Now what is weird is that nothing really happened to make me feel grumpy. I think I have a cold that might be coming on, so I don’t feel the best. That might have something to do with it, but normally I don’t allow my physical infirmities to affect me emotionally. So Im just not used to feeling like a grouch. I am however proud that I didn’t act like a grouch. I think that is a very important distinction. I have had a very busy and very productive week. Maybe the weekend coming right around the corner is a good thing. I need to rest. I had a couple of big meetings today. There is one client that needs a huge product done in 8 weeks. ...

Ok…lets get the bad news out of the way first. Well its not really bad news except for me. Its funny I was chatting with a friend earlier today that said I had a lack of humility. I guess they are right. Im pretty confident on purpose, but I try not to be cocky. I have to believe whole-heartedly in myself, which I do for others to believe in me. I mean Im a child of the King, so that gives me confidence right there. I don’t want to show any weakness. The confidence is genuine, but perhaps I do overdo it a bit to overcompensate for my lack of esteem that happened during the divorce process. That’s one of the things that I didn’t talk about with my divorce. It just kills your esteem. That’s why so many hurting people that go through divorce have a tendency to self-medicate someway because the pain is so acutely intense. Your security, your happiness, your idea of self, your children, often times your finances, your house all vanishes in what seems like a blink o...

Its 10:30 and the guests just left. I would have to say that was one of the best Positive Living groups we’ve had. There was so much lively discussion. My new friend came, he was the Muslim that I mentioned I had lunch with on Saturday. I was concerned about his opinions of the group since he is devout Muslim. But he seemed to have a great time. We had the second biggest gathering at 10, we almost ran out of chairs, which is a great problem to have. But I don’t want to be about numbers. We discussed truth tonight. Im trusting the Holy Spirit to disseminate that truth as he sees fit. Everyone is really starting to like each other which is so weird. The group is so disparate. There are so many different religions, cultures, ages, genders, professions, socioeconomic status, beliefs. It’s a wonder if we have anything in common at all. I think if I had to pick one overriding factor is that we are all open to seek the truth whatever that truth may be. There is...

OK…Im not making this stuff up honest. Often times I sit down and write the blog I have no idea what Im going to write. The words just kind of come out. Its not like I go through the day and think, I’ll write about this event, circumstance, or emotion. Although there are sometimes I look forward to writing about funny things in the blog, most of it is not planned. So generally I go on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That might be a foreign concept to some. I just kind of feel His presence when I write this. How do I know it’s the Holy Spirit? Well for a lot of reasons. Lets start with the negative. Im not perfect and I sin. Whenever I do give into the flesh, I find it incredibly difficult to write. It just doesn’t flow. Its like I have to force it out of me and the blog becomes a burden in my life and not a blessing. But when I’m living my life right, which I am the vast majority of the time, this thing just flows out of me. The Holy Spirit, or that sm...

Whoa, you talk about your lazy introverted days, I just had a doozy. Slept in til 11:30, emailed chatted, went to lunch. The only thing I really did today of note, was go on a super long kayak ride in the heat of the day. It was longer than I’ve ever gone before, about 90 min. and at the end I was knackered. The water was really tough today, so It felt like I was in a battle, both to stay straight and not get thrown off course…oh what a metaphor for life. It got me to thinking of my own life and my successes and failures. I touched on this earlier in the blog around November I believe, but now that I have more readers I believe that is bears repeating. I have made several mistakes in my marriage. One of the big ones is that I got my sense of esteem from my wife. When I was a “hero” that was good. But when she stopped believing in me…not so good. I remember the second lowest day of my life, it was about three years ago now. I had just returned from Saudi Arabi...

Im writing this a little bit earlier than I normal do. I was invited to the closing night party at Aqua Fuego. My friend Sidd is moving his club to a new venue. So since we have our “Funniest Person” contest there, I thought I should attend. I told Sidd, its funny that we’re friends, because I hate clubs. For a number of reasons. The club (in general) is one of the places where my marriage was destroyed. So I don’t like that environment. Plus I don’t drink, smoke, and can’t dance a lick. So Im kind of like a Muslim in a pork butcher shop there…or a diabetic in a candy store. I just don’t fit in. But I want to be a support. I stayed up late…really late chatting with friends in the U.S. last night. I didn’t get to sleep til 5a. It’s the weekend, so I didn’t mind. But imagine my surprise when I woke up at 2pm. What.!!!!! That was kind of surreal for me. So I hopped out of bed answered a couple of emails, and made it to my kayak. It was really dusty ...