Bedtime stories in North Carolina

I just HAD to blog tonight.

So, Wendy and I just arrived in Wilmington, N.C. My cousin and his family live here, and we're staying with them for a few days. Then we'll head up to Winston-Salem to visit my Grandmother, aunt, and other cousins. We rolled up at about 8pm, and had dinner and talked. It was fun.

Currently, it's 11:50pm. At about 10:40 tonight, we said our good nights, and retired to our room.

It's a beautiful master suite, huge walk-in closet, big bath, large room and bed, and Allison has done such a great job making it feel welcoming. She even prepared a basket of toiletries in case we had forgotten some of our own! We spent the next 10min getting ready for bed, but seeing as how it is only 7:50 our time in Cali, it was still just a bit too early to actually sleep. No big deal, I have my laptop.

I plugged it in and set in on the bed. I then climbed into bed, and sitting upright with my legs stretched out in front of me, proceeded to arrange the blankets...



and then the bed fell apart. Well... that's not exactly right. The bed didn't exactly "fall apart" - Rather... it broke. With a

VERY

LOUD

CRASH.


Seriously? Seriously?@! What the heck! I mean, this is the first trip I've ever made to see my extended family without the rest of my immediate family, and the first thing I manage to do is break their bed? What kind of lousy luck it that?!

My first thougt was to fix it. But in order to do that, I had to take off the comforter, mattress, box spring, and move the side table. Additionally, or perhaps far more importantly, the only "tool" handy was a plastic toy screwdriver.

The side rails have metal plates in them on the ends that hook into the headboard and footboard. The plate connecting to the headboard on the side I was sitting on ripped out of its sideboard!

Turns out, it's actually broken, so there's no way for me to fix it... certainly not without real tools. By this point it's 11:15 or so, and I don't want to disturb our hosts, so Wendy and I decide to just give up and rearrange the room so we can "make" ourselves a bed.

What once was a beautiful room, quickly turned into chaos.

At this present time, We've completely disassembled the bed, and I'm laying on the mattress which is in the middle of the floor. Our hosts still have no idea any of this has taken place.

I gotta admit though, I'm actually kinda excited to see their faces when they come in tomorrow to get us. :-)

and of course, for your viewing pleasure:



It's only too bad I don't have full "before during and after" pics.

Hot Cars

I'm not a big "car" guy. Heck, I'm not a big "sports" guy... or most things "guy-like".

That said, I do have opinions about those guy-things, and every once in awhile i get decidedly "guy-ish".

Well, I read this article: 6 Cars So Alluring They're in an Art Museum

It made me think of my all-time favorite, sexy car. That's first car in the article: 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C2900B Touring Berlinetta , is pretty sexy. But no where near as sexy as my favorite car.

Say hello to the most beautiful car every made: The Auburn Boattail cir. 1936




You'll wanna click those images to see em' up close.

Ever since I was 15, I've loved this car... I mean LOVED this car. I rarely get so excited about a vehicle... but this one is SOOOOoooo sexy. If I ever had the time and money to restore a car, THIS would be it.

It is simply beautiful. It just screams power, and refinement - and it oozes sex-appeal.


I didn't bother to see if it was one of the 18 cars that made it into the museum. If not, it should be. It's true "car-art" at its finest!

What about you? What do you think of the Auburn? Would you pick something different?

Kisha vs. Ke$ha

So last night, we watched American Idol. This "Lady gaga" wannabe Ke$ha came on the show and performed. Can I just say, "Horrid"?

Anyway, it made me wonder something:

For those of you who may or may not know... I used to be an actor. I did a commercial or two, but I'm most "famous" for my award-winning work in a music video... for a female pop-star from Switzerland/Germany named Kisha.

I was confused, and had to make sure this lame "Ke$ha" wasn't the same as my Kisha. It isn't... but at any rate, made me track down this little goodie for all of your enjoyment!

Behold! Me, in all my 17yr. old glory! (Oh the days when I had no chest hair! :-P ) I'm easy to pick out (I'm one of the surfer dude's, and am the "most seen guy" in the video)... however, some/most of you may know two of the other guys in the video... can you pick them out?

The Killing of Abortion doctors

Jury Reaches Guilty Verdict in Murder of Abortion Doctor

I'm torn by this article. The question is this: "Is it wrong to murder a murderer?"

Some would say the "murderer" in this scenario (an Abortion Doctor) isn't a murderer... but if you believe the Dr. is committing murder, is it then murder or simply killing to take their life?

That's a hard question to answer. We have a fundamental obligation to protect those that can't protect themselves. The case linked above is interesting, because the Judge wanted the case to not be about abortion... which is precisely what it is about.

We have Murder charges... but we also have man-slaughter charges too... specifically for the purpose of punishing "poor" decisions, vs. "evil" decisions (at least, that's how I see it).

So, in this case, isn't that exactly the point?

If you believe Mr. Roeder at all (regardless of your view on Abortion rights), then according to his motives... isn't it technically a "poor" decision? His motives were, after all, to protect those he believed were defenseless. That's not exactly "evil" is it?

I think about Osama Bin Laden. I've thought about killing him multiple times. I've premeditated it for years. For me, the thing that holds me back is my inability to accomplish the task... but that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it for years - and given the opportunity to kill him, I'd do it. So, is premeditation the standard by which we judge murder? If so, then if I ever see Osama Bin Laden, I guess I'm going to jail forever.

The Dr. was doing something within the law... there's no argument there. but does that absolve someone from their responsibility to protect others? (even if that responsibility is only perceived?)

I'm torn by this case.

Birthday tunes from iTunes... the list

So, not only was my 30th a super amazing evening, but the gifts I got were totally awesome, and totally ME!

Anyway, one "type" of gift I got was iTunes gift cards, and I got a bunch! That's really good news, because I've had a bunch of albums lined-up that I've wanted to purchase, and now I had the chance to do so.

I still have more credit left to buy another album or two, but here's what I've gotten so far (note: these are all full albums):

Christian

Church Music - David Crowder Band

A Collision (I already own B Collision) - David Crowder Band

Can You Hear Us? - David Crowder Band

Closer (EP) - Jars of Clay

Never Going Back to OK - The Afters

33 Miles - 33Miles

One Life - 33Miles

Pages Special Edition - Shane Barnard & Shane Everett (aka Shane & Shane)

Kingdom of Comfort - Delirious?

Wake Me - Tal & Acacia

What to Do With Daylight - Brooke Fraser

Albertine - Brooke Fraser

Secular

A Good Day - Priscilla Ahn

The Hotel Cafe Presents Winter Songs - Various Artists (in the same vein of, and including, Priscilla Ahn, Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson)

*Brooke Fraser falls in with the secular group of women at the end of the list as well... however, she is a Christian artist that blends in with both sides (and toured with the Hotel Cafe group for a bit).

I highly recommend all the albums above... they are all so awesome.

Call to Worship

It's been a long time... a very long time since I've had an evening of lengthy, intimate worship with God.

I'm not simply talking about a church service of worship, where the # of choruses are pre-planned, and God isn't given any room to move, except within the confines of the "planned evening".

What I'm talking about is the deep, meaningful, intimate worship that comes with people gathering together to sing songs and let God join them and move them the direction He wants.

Most of you who read my blog are familiar with the "First Sunday Night of the Month Worship Service" that used to occur at Emmanuel EV Free Church in Burbank. I miss that.

During my one year at APU, Nathan Duke and myself started to meet at the firepit near the small chapel outside our dorm, and play music. By the end of the year, it grew into a weekly Tues. Night event with multiple musicians, and that over 70 people (on avg.) would attend. We'd just play what we felt, or someone would mention a song and we'd play that until we were lead to another song. If we didn't know the song, we'd pass along our instruments to others that did know it. It was awesome, and I still look back at that with thankfulness that I was able to be an intrigal part of that event.

I want that again. I miss that type of communion with God.

I want to plan an evening next month (or maybe the first weekend of March) to get together with others and just praise God for who He is. Not just another venue to have a church service with someone to preach to me. No, I simply want a time to glorify God with music.

I'm still figuring this all out, but I know what I'm after, and I'm willing to make sure it happens. My hope is that friends tell friends who tell more friends, until it's a group of people I both know and don't know, but who are interested in spending an evening together glorifying God.

My idea is one similar to that which we started at APU: People show up with their voices... and with instruments if they have them. This isn't a "i'll stand on stage and lead you" type of thing. This is a "we get in a group and everyone has something to offer" type of thing.

Have a guitar? Bring it. Have more than one? Bring em all so others can play too. Bongos? Sure. Egg Shakers? You bet. Just your voice? Perfect. A heart focused on Christ? An absolute must.

I miss it. I miss it a lot. Don't you?

A couple different thoughts

1) I'm the only proclaimed Christian in my office. Today, my co-worker, Beyhan, approached me and she asked me a "religious" question - one which I believe I answered honestly, but also told her that I wanted to look into it further to make sure I didn't give an answer from ignorance. It was a great question:

"What does the Bible say are OK and "proper" reasons that a person should get married?



This was followed with, "Does the Bible say it is OK to not get married?"

Now the second one I answered easily... yes, it is OK to not get married. Paul even encourages it if possible in Corinthians.

But the first was interesting. It's not, "What does the Bible say about marriage?" but rather, about the reasons that good and appropriate to choose to get married.

My answer? As far as I know, the Bible doesn't say anything about what should be a persons reasons behind getting married, but instead simply talks at length about the marriage bond itself (and given those rules, one can deduce if their choice for marriage will be honoring in the long-term). I said I'd come back to her though. Anyone with any additional thoughts?

2) I read 3 articles today about the Massachusetts Senate race. Not one contributed the Democrat loss to policy decisions. Instead, they only blamed Democrats for falling asleep at the wheel during the campaign. Additionally, they all still found a way to through in a "Bush's fault" in their articles. These were from NY Times, ABC News, and Washington Post. Pathetic.


3) Following my #2 above, I'm really pissed that somehow "Health-care Reform" has become synonymous with "Public Health-care". Why can't we simply fix the problems of our system, without destroying the private industry? Furthermore, why doesn't someone point this out VERY VERY LOUDLY?

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said he was skeptical of suggestions to scale back health care legislation and pass some incremental changes as part of a stripped-down bill.

“That’s probably not so wise,” Mr. Rockefeller said. “That could become another long process.”

One idea is to pass a bill that focuses on tough federal regulation of health insurance markets. But Mr. Rockefeller asked, “Does that cover 35 million Americans?”

Does this guy not get it... that many people who don't have health-care don't have it because they simply can't afford it?... but that if we can reduce the costs of health-care itself with reform (such as reduce lawsuit liability, and price gouging), then the costs will drop and then people might be able to afford it? Why is it so necessary for the Government to create a system that kills the Private Sector?

Fact, the health-care that is received here in the U.S.A. is the best in the world. Why destroy a system that has so much good in it? Why not simply fix the problems of the current system?

Another example of this stupid thinking: Illegal Immigrants and Border Security. Can we not pass legislation to fix our borders that focuses simply on the border problem, without needing to muddy the waters with a COMPLETELY SEPARATE ISSUE: "What do we do with the illegal aliens here today?"