The 160 Gig IPOD

On Thursday September 17 my 160 gig Ipod finally arrived. I must admit I did not think that FedEx would get it here. They have a history of taking items to the warehouse where individuals have to go retrieve them.
The package arrived while I was at work. It was a short day at work and I got home fairly early.
I was excited to get the package.
No injuries while opening package.
Look! A box within a box.

I must admit that Apple has some of the best packaging around.
We have noticed that the Ipod boxes seem to be getting smaller and smaller.

Shrink wrap is always in the way.
My first view of the 160 gig.
Love at first sight.
How do I load thee, let me start NOW!
Tons of packaging and little things.

I started to load right away. Then Missy reminded me that we had a party to go to. A party! At a time like this? I went to the party and left early. I walked home (it wasn't far) and got back to work. I started loading my music manually (Janie and Missy have music on ITunes also and I didn't want to load their tunes.) I decided to load alphabetically by album name. Currently I am in the S's. Moving right along. At the moment I have 10,625 songs loaded. I should finish by the end of the weekend. (I hope!)

Internet Radio

I have just been turned on to a new radio station on the net. It is wowfm.com. They play a good mixture of Christian and "positive" mainstream songs. Lots of good music. Check them out on line.

Pickin' Up The Pieces

I started reading Richie Furay's autobiography "Pickin' Up The Pieces" yesterday. So far it is really good. He has had an amazing life and to read about it is something else. It is really hard to resist skipping ahead to certain places in the book. So far I have been good.

If you are looking for a copy of it I got mine through Amazon.com for a good price.

The First 15 Shuffle Songs Of The Day

Here are the first 15 shuffled songs from my 80 gig Ipod today. I will possibly post these somewhat daily.

1. "Yahweh Love" Sara Jahn Never Say Dinosaur

2. "Awesome in the Lord Most High" Chris Tomlin See The Morning

3. "I've Been Slipping" Over The Rhine Patience

4. "Mastermind" Deitiphobia Fear of the Digital Remix

5. "Beautiful America" Five Iron Frenzy Upbeats & Beatdowns

6. "She Like To Look At Pictures" Tom Howard View From The Bridge

7. "I'm Walkin'" Fats Domino Be-Bop-A-Lula

8. "Soldier" Oden Fong Invisible Man

9. "Here I Go" Greenchoby Contentment

10. "A Dangerous Sea" Terl Bryant Beauty. . .As Far As The Eye Can See

11. "[Hidden Track]" The Insyderz Fight Of My Life

12. "My Soul Finds Rest" Calvary Chapel Music Praise Vol. 6 Shout For Joy

13. "Tuesday Assassin" Mortal Intense Live Series Vol. 5

14. "All The Flowers Growing In Your Mother's Eyes"

The Throes All The Flowers Growing In Your Mother's Eyes

15. "Thumb Nail Sketch" Terry Scott Taylor Neverhood Songs

The New Ipod Has Arrived

It finally arrived! My new 160 gig Ipod is here. What seemed like an eternity was not really all that long. It is only a day late. Not to bad. I sat down to start loading it when Missy reminded me that we had to go to a party. First time that I wanted to skip a party and stay home!

I left early to start loading my new little friend. I had to load my podcasts and then I started to work on the music. Eventually, I might get it all loaded. It will take some time.

I am loading them according to album since they are in alphabetical order. It makes life simple. I am not loading my Christmas music except for the Happy Christmas albums (Tooth & Nail) and Noel. Maybe a couple of others also (Christmas in Heaven and Over the Rhine's first Christmas album).

This will take a few days but the fun has just begun!

Marching With A Limp

Have you ever felt that you were just slightly out of step with everyone else? I remember growing up and not being very popular. And then when my family moved and I started a new school, I was the new kid in the neighborhood and everyone else had been in school together since 1st grade. I was really the odd man out.

So often it is easy to get a pity party going for my self. Being a supervisor (even though just part time) and living among co-workers can be a problem. You do not get invited to go do things with "friends" or, like this evening, you do not get invited to parties/pot lucks. Tonight there was a pot luck and a party at a "friends" house. These are co-workers and neighbors. Everyone lives in this area. In fact, we all mostly live on the same street. I was driving home from work, it was about 5:30 and I drove past the pot luck. Everyone was sitting outside in a large circle, food was being partaked of and the entire neighborhood was there. But my wife and I were not invited. So, we made dinner and watched a movie.

At times I have to convince myself that I was over looked. Other times I have to come up with a reason with a little creativity. But most of all, I have to take a deep breathe, not allow it to bother me, and treat everyone the same. I have to not allow my pity party to take control.

The Bible does say that we are to love others. It just never mentions how hard it can be.

Do I Really Want That Memory?

I got sucked into the vortex of Facebook recently. It really was an accident. I was here at home, minding my own business, when one thing led to another and then WHAM! there I was. Maybe not quite like that. It was more of friends (on Facebook) and other friends (on Facebook), and then I joined.

It is amazing to me that there are periods of your life that you really do not want to relive. For me high school is one of them. Yeah, I had some friends in high school. But most of my high school friends were also friends from church and we would hang out together. My church was more of a family for me while high school was not. There are those individuals who seemed to have peeked out in high school. When they tell stories about their life it always starts with "when I was in high school" or "when I was playing football (or baseball, or basketball, or tiddlie-winks) in high school."

It seems that Facebook has this undercurrent of getting in touch with your high school friends. The "recommendations" that they make for people to get in touch with are from your old high school and of course they graduated when you did. I look at the names and I do not know any of them. But I have "found" a few people that I know from church and other places and it is good to hear from them.

Is this replacing relationships in this decade? It is hard to build relationships on the internet. I think maybe we need to be careful that we do not replace true relationships with shallow chatter.

Ipod Watch

I ordered the new 160 gig Ipod on Wednesday when they were released. I did not know that it was coming from CHINA!!!

So the Ipod watch has started here at home. At the moment my Ipod has just left Anchorage, AK. It has been interesting to track it.

So the waiting game continues. If it arrives on Tuesday I would be happy. But I doubt that it will arrive then.
I ordered a new plastic case for it that did arrive today. So at the moment it is just sitting. . . empty. And waiting.

We took the weekend and headed down to Prescott. It was good to get away. The main reason was to go to church at Calvary. It was a good time of fellowship, worship and teaching. We have gotten to know a couple of people there and it is always good to see them.

Pastor Raj is still in the Gospel of John on Sunday mornings. His study in John is excellent. He started back in December and is only in John 7. Good stuff.

He arrived in Prescott on Saturday and checked into the Comfort Suites. Had lunch at Garcias (mexican food) and then went to Julie & Julia. Not a bad movie at all. It is interesting that a movie can be made concerning food. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and Missy and I spent about 30 minutes in the hot tub. What a great way to relax!

It has been ordered!

The new 160 gig Ipod Classic is now available and I placed my order. It should arrive either tomorrow or Friday. I can hardly wait. As soon as it arrives I should be at the computer for a few hours loading loading music. I cannot imagine having ALL of my music available at my finger tips. The waiting begins.

One More Time

I have just started re-reading Gayle Erwin's classic "The Jesus Style." This is one of my favorite books of all time.

I have actually owned three copies of this book. The first copy was when it first came out (mid-80s) and it was a nice hard cover copy. I have no idea what happened to it. I must have moved to many times. The second copy got damaged in a bad rain back in 2005. This copy I bought two years ago.

When I finish this I will then start the two sequels that he wrote, "The Father Style" and "The Spirit Style."

Good stuff.

Music to paint by

While painting yesterday I listened to some different music. I started off with Adam Again's great (and last) album Perfecta. From there I went to Daniel Amos' album Mr. Buechner's Dream. Then I listened to one of my all time favorite albums: Sticks and Stones by the 77s. This album spoke to my heart so deeply back in the early 90's, and it still does. Great album by the greatest rock-n-roll band in the world!

These are a few of my favorite things

Last winter when we returned to Texas I brought back my saw horses. I have needed them off and on since I got here. There are 3 tools that I love and cannot imagine doing a project without them. I will share the other two with you at a later time.

Painting project - 2

These are some of the tools that I used. The paint is a beige color that when applied we really do not care for. I do see another painting project in my future. Hopefully not until next year!

Painting project

We have some walls that needed to be painted. Two years ago we painted some walls some different colors; green orange, purple, pink, and yellow. But the time came when we needed to paint them again. Tuesday was the day!

Here are some of the walls that got painted.

Fall Schedule 2009

It is that time of the year when we look to the Fall Season and bid on new routes. This fall I will be driving full time and supervising when needed (when someone takes off). The bid sheets came out this past Thursday night and Friday morning. I took the sheet home and Missy and I went over it carefully. As normal we made a list to see which ones we liked and debated the pros and cons of them.

There were three routes that I thought really stood out but the one I really wanted was number two. That would give me Saturday and Sunday off and something that resembled normal hours. We prayed first of all that the Lord would have His way and we also asked the Lord to allow us to have the first route on our list.

My time to bid came up and number two was not taken! So, this fall I will have Saturday and Sundays off! I will not be in the way of Missy when she is doing school with Janie (that is a big one), and I will not have to swap Saturday or Sunday in November when I go on the Men's Retreat.

Here is my new route. The scan is not real clear but hopefully you can make it out.