There were some downright fun parts about our Katrina trip. Steve (aka. Thor), my coworker wrote a good piece for the company newsletter that has been republished on Julie’s blog (my other coworker who was on the trip)
Read Thor’s Random Employee Story of the Month, its mostly about the fun we had while driving to and fro in Mississippi.
Normally we worry about regretting things we did. But recently it occurred to me that you can, and I have, regret for playing it safe. Lalah summarizes a conversation I was apart of very well, so I’ll save the writing and let her explain it:
Unlike, Julie and Steph, I haven’t quite been able to figure out what the soundtrack of my life would be. However, I have been making a playlist every month the represents songs that I just discovered, can’t get enough of, or describe thoughts/feelings of that month. So here it is, the soundtrack of my year:
May ’04
Don’t Tell Me by Avril Lavigne
Don’t Leave Me by Blink-182
Every Little Thing by Hawk Nelson
Accidentally In Love by Counting Crows
Barrel of a Gun by Guster
June ’04
Who Knows by Avril Lavigne
Shiver by Coldplay
Letter Read by Rachael Yamagata
In This Diary by The Ataris
July ’04
Walkie Talkie Man by Steriogram
California by Hawk Nelson [Free Download]
Girl on LSD by Tom Petty
Low Income (Its Friday!) by Wyclef Jean
Barbie Girl [German] by Rammstein
Spider-Man Theme by Michael Bublé
September ’04
Punk Rock 101 by Bowling for Soup
Always On My Mind by Phantom Planet
Take Me by Hawk Nelson
Vertigo by U2
Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been by Relient K
German Test Drive by Spymob
Pittsburgh by Huntingtons
What’s My Age Again by Blink-182
One Year, Six Months by Yellowcard
1985 by Bowling for Soup
Ode to a Butterfly by Nickel Creek
October ’04
Be My Escape by Relient K
Age Six Racer by Dashboard Confessional
High Of 75 by Relient K
October Nights by Yellowcard
November ’04
Life Of A Salesman by Yellowcard
Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet
A Praise Chorus [Live] by Jimmy Eat World
First Date by Blink-182
My Alien by Simple Plan
December ’04
I Celebrate The Day by Relient K
Christmas Day by MxPx
Green Christmas by Barenaked Ladies
Sleigh Ride by Johnny Mathis
February ’05
Again I Go Unnoticed by Dashboard Confessional
Somewhere Only We Know by Keane
We’re Going To Be Friends by The White Stripes
March ’05
Such Great Heights by The Postal Service [Free Download]
Quit Your Life by MxPx
The Wonderful Cross by Joel Engle
Curbside Prophet [Live] by Jason Mraz
April ’05
Life After Death & Taxes (Failure II) by Relient K
Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney
Save the Last Dance for Me by Michael Bublé
General Mills should probably take notice and add a new iPod shaped marshmallow to me magical Lucky Charms.
Alright times are a changing. It’s taking me longer to post an update, I’m commenting on a month and a half old news article and kids are no longer looking for Lucky Charms at the end of the rainbow. According to a survey of 500 Welsh kids (we’re not talking about grape juice here people) 22% of them wanted to find an iPod at “the end of the rainbow”.
Don’t get me wrong I love my iPod (maybe too much, but that’s between me and my counselor). But kids in this century are sure getting expensive tastes. In the same survey adults said that they were hoping to find bikes, roller-skates and candy at the end of their childhood rainbows. Sweets and pets were still top ten responses for kids and adults, thank goodness for tradition. There’s nothing quite like feeding your slobbery dog a bag of Pop Rocks. But we found that dog digging through the neighbor’s trash and those Pop Rocks we like a jar of alabaster. I did have a bike growing up but I swear my bike didn’t start at $250 and come in 5 fruity colors.
Let me tell you, back in my day we were lucky to just have a rainbow. Much less a rainbow with iPods littering the backside. When we did find a rainbow we were happy if we found more than dirt. We loved those rocks, they made great toys. Pets? Footballs? Those were rocks to us. I sure wish poor Jimmy would just learn to catch. “Black-and-Blue-Jim”, that’s what we used to call him.
Olympics 2004! Here I am, firmly planted on the couch!
It is that time again. The time where we meet only minimal comments, for two weeks I’m dedicated to one thing, watching Olympics.
Pretty much everything else has been neglected, in a vain attempt to watch as much of the 70+ hours of daily coverage possible here in the United States. Yes I have to work and we don’t have cable but I am trying to squeeze in all the Olympics I can. I wouldn’t dream of trying to watch TV at work, unless I have to stay late or if the Olympics are on.
It really got out of control in 2000, because Asbury sends so many students to work at the Olympics, you want to watch more Olympics because you know people who are there working at it. I mean we went all out to watch Olympics. We had daily TV schedules printed out posted on the wall. We would eat dinner faster, stop doing homework, and pretty much not leave the dorm.
After actually working at the Winter Olympics in 2002 its like I have some sort of connection to the games. (I still have picture from that trip up on my Spring ’02 Album.) This year, again knowing about a dozen people working in Athens it gives me a little added interest. A
couple of those have started their own blogs to document their trip.
Asbury’s Blog
Joel Foster News
Stephen M. James at the Olympics
Scott & Kate’s Big Fat Greek
Adventure
And don’t you worry, I wrote this blog while sitting on the couch watching Michael Phelps win his second gold. I wasn’t about to miss some just to write my first entry in a month.
Coughed up 3 bucks to see Big Fish at the Carmike, I know its on DVD but it was just one of those movies I thought would be better to see for real.
I saw the movie Big Fish this weekend. A very good movie, “fantastic” in that the stories in it are so over the top. (If you haven’t seen it yet, go read someone else’s blog cause I might ruin it for you.) The father is always telling people, he’s son in particular, about all these life adventures that can’t possibly be true because the stories are just so over the top. I kind of thought about my own dad and how good he is at telling stories. I have always loved sitting at a table late at night surrounded by his siblings and in-laws as they reflect of some of the great things that have happened since last time they talked or reflecting on adventures from when they were younger. I know my father better though sitting in on these story times. I know more about my aunts, uncles and grandparents as well. Unfortunately, theses stories would have no occasion to be simply told to me. Adults know kids probably don’t care about getting carded when trying to buy diapers. It is such a treat to hear about the lives of those who have came before you. This really all goes back to my blog a couple weeks ago on what Ecclesiastes says is really important in life. It is all about our relationships, especially our relationship with Christ, that’s why communication is so important. Whether it be through stories or prayer it is so good to get to know people. More than just how their day was and what their job is.
Its a shame when the memory of people is lost. How many of us don’t even know the name of our great grandparents or where our great-great-great-grandparents came from. Recently I and some other relative were able to sit down and video tape a conversation with my grandparents about their lives. About their brothers, sisters, parents and how they met. My grandpop was shocked when I asked basic questions that he might have thought were common knowledge. We don’t know what those who came before us had to deal with in their lives. I have a copy of Band of Brothers on my desk right now, an incredible miniseries about World War II. Being from the generation I am, I knew almost nothing about how much of a strain on life that war on the world. I am so glad I did not have to live through it. I am so much more appreciative about what our grandparents did now that I have seen it. I have heard almost nothing about my granddad’s own time in the army.
I think this might be changing though, thanks a lot to consumer photography. Right now I am scanning hundreds of pictures for Steve’s memory video that will be shown at his wedding. There are just so many pictures. I know what he looked like after his first hair cut. This was something those 100 years ago didn’t have the advantage of. Hopefully with the advancement of affordable photography my grandkids will see pictures of my on the wall from 2004 and ask me what that was like. What will we do with photos once their owners pass on? I hope we don’t just throw them all away. My poor kids (if that day ever comes) will literally
have thousands of pictures of themselves.
Big Fish leaves the viewer with two possibilities for the larger than life stories. Either the storyteller exaggerated everything, or the young listener made up his own size for a giant. That’s going to be one of the disadvantages of having pictures of everything, kids won’t have to leave things up to their imagination. They’ll know that the giant you traveled the country with wasn’t really 15 feet tall. Secondhand Lions was another really good movie I saw not too long ago. Both are about lives who’s stories seem bigger than reality. As each movie draws to a close we learn that for the most part the fantastic stories are true, and its believable because as my dad says “truth is stranger than fiction”.
Another Ichthus is behind us, all we really have to show for it is a bit of mud on our floor boards and memories we won’t remember which year they were from.
A week ago I didn’t even know if I would be going to Ichthus this year. After some plans changing (see previous post), I had some extra time this weekend. 2004 marks my fourth Ichthus and least amount of time, I was actually able to spend on the grounds. With a real job and all, most of friday was shot. Skipping a full work day really isn’t the same as skipping a couple classes and chapel.
Overall I had a good time, but no where near the fun I had while in college working the video crew. Its fun trying to sell Audio Adrenaline stuff to underage fans who have twenties burning a hole in their pocket. “I have $16, what can I get?” I did get an Audio A CD free for volunteering at the sales tent and working their table.
Now all I have to do is scrap the mud out of the washing machine!
Its that time of the year again. Time for Wilmore to quadruple in size and see how bad a record group of kids can smell after not showering for 3 days.
Ichthus is one of those things that every year I am more excited about then I thought I would be. Didn’t go, didn’t care, Freshman year, but now I can’t stand to pass it up. My mom was planning on coming in today, something I was excited about, but earlier this week she called and said she couldn’t find a decent flight time. A bummer, but it would have been a busy weekend for me and I would have not been able to give mom the attention she deserves. And not just because of Ichthus, I only really want to see one band anyway. I had work stuff from lunch through dinner. I was planning on weaseling my way in to Ichthus tomorrow for the 35 minutes Reliant K was scheduled to play. (Sorry about the unintentional rhyme.) With mom having to reschedule on Monday I had to find a more definitive way into Ichthus, cause there was no way I was going to sit around all weekend when everyone else is having fun. Luckily, I knew someone who still needed volunteers, I filled the last big spot in her volunteer schedule and I get a free wrist band. A win-win situation.
I actually like working more then watching the concerts. There is no way the sales tent can be nearly as fun as working on the video crew, but I’m sure it’ll be cool. Once I get there, I know I’m going to wish I was still an Asbury (check out the cool new website!) student running a camera or directing a show. That was so much fun, defiantly a highlight of my college career.
Ok, so this one is a bit outa date, and you probably don’t care. But its my blog, I make the rules around here. I won’t know if you don’t read on, so don’t feel guilty.
A couple weeks ago I discovered a song called First Day of the Rest of Our Lives. It’s a cliche line that could be said about any day but some days really do feel like the first day of the rest of my life. Looking back in my journal I found that I wrote that in reflection to my first day on my first real job after college. That really did feel like the first day of the rest of my life. Beyond the title, the words of this song strike a cord in me. This song was also the first MxPx recording I purchased. The bands been around forever, and seem like the father of Christian Punk. I’ve heard their stuff off and on since high school but I’ve never owned anything of theirs.
I am not one to buy albums of music, that’s the main reason why I love the iTunes Music Store so much. I have embarrassingly few CDs, but there are some that I find have too many good songs to pass up. One night over a year ago I listened to a friend’s copy of Avril Lavigne‘s Let Go about 6 times in a row. She’s got so many good songs on there, and I already had stolen a quarter of them I had to give and any pony up the $9.99. I know she a record industry creation, sounds like crap live, and a poser but I like her stuff.
My most recent purchase was a mediocre cover of a U2 great. The only copy I could get my hands of Sanctus Real‘s rendition of Beautiful Day was a crappy MP3 that a friend downloaded for me. It sounds like it was taped off the radio with a microphone and then all the levels were jacked up. So I was very happen to find a quality version on iTunes. (I should be getting paid for how badly I’m endorsing this thing on my blog). Why do I need a track that is just “alright”. Well there’s this mix CD I’m working on and well, I just couldn’t use U2’s version again.
There comes a time in every drivers life when they do the unthinkable, they hit a poor defenseless animal while driving. Today was that day for me, and here is my story. Good thing it wasn’t a deer.
I know there was something I wanted to Blog about last night, but I forgot what it was. Luckly, I remembered. Yesterday was the first time I hit an animal with my car. I don’t know if I should be happy about this fact, but it is kind of sad. Yesterday on my way to work, I was driving a bit faster then usual and out of no where this bird swoops down at right about the same time my left headlight wanted to occupy that space. That poor bird learned one of those lessons it could have learned in Science class, no two things can occupy the same space at the same time. Poor kid, he should have been listening in class instead of passing notes to Robin. Some times you’ve got to learn lessons the hard way.