WE WANT CHANGE!

Yet another totally random thought (two in one night ... whodda thunk)!. We were at a different church on Sunday which was a unique experience. It was all prayer and worship. Not the traditional Sunday service. I enjoyed it for the most part but that's not where I'm going. One of the prayer times was for our country. The lady that was leading that time was talking about how Satan is really good about using our political views as a distraction and a way to drive a wedge between us, our country and our government. I found this very insightful as I'm not very fond of our new president but I truly believe the best thing we can do is pray for him and the administration. I believe that's what the Lord would have us do as Christians rather than continue the false internet rumors, gossip and overall complaining about all the issues we have with decisions he makes. Just think of how the majority of Jews felt about Jesus when he was on earth talking about 'change' and overturning the ruling powers. He was crucified for his talk of change. Are we doing what's most productive to show our light and love of Christ to others when we are talking nasty about the leader the vast majority of America voted for? It really made me think about what I say and how I talk about our government listening to this lady talk. We need to build up and guide with prayer (unless in a position to do something - which we can by our votes each fall)! I'm tired of people complaining or talking about things they don't really know anything about rather than what we as citizens of this great country can do to make a vast change and bring it back to focus on being a Godly nation again.

remember Cheese is awesome!

Rudeness

Why do some people feel it's okay to just be outright rude? I'm in the middle of a project at work and one of the vendors has a horrid attitude. While I'm used to dealing with rude users I'm rather taken aback by the rudeness from a vendor. We're paying them for the service and they're rude to us as well as the other vendor involved in the enjoyment of the project. It ties in with the whole bike month debacle. If it wasn't for a few rude people there wouldn't be a problem. Now MB has come up with an entire list of local laws for motorcycles (helmets, quiet pipes, curfew, etc.). It affects everyone that rides a bike in city limits. Way to go Mr. Mayor. He raises property taxes to offset lost revenue from bike month. Lots of coverage about bikes on the local paper http://www.thesunnews.com/bikers/

More fun happenings around here. The Run To The Sun car show was over the weekend. Somewhere around 2500 cars at the show. Mostly hot rods. I'm not sure how many more '57 Chevys can I see at one place. Seems to be two extremes. Either the $5k hot rod that's driven too often or the $100k + super clean that never gets dirty. Neither have much appeal for me. Car shows tend to just make me want to drive my Corvette. Some of the highlights for me

I love old rat rods. There are a couple of ebay that I was looking at. I think my wife thinks I'm
joking about them ... someday I will own one. I

need to get my Corvette in a little better shape first though. I do love the flat black, super channeled, lowered to the ground, big engine rumbling look. This truck amazes me. My favorite body style of truck. I looked at one as a kid that was in pretty rough shape. My dad & I still make fun of it. Comments by the owner such as 'The tires were new at one time' and 'I painted it myself ... with a roller like you'd use on a house' and 'the key isn't working right now. Just have to climb underneath it and put these two wires together and she'll start right up!'. For a 16 year old with limited funds I decided it probably wasn't the best way to go. In retrospect, it would have been a lot of fun.


And on that note ... another one of life's mysteries ... why do Christians think that Christian rock is 'of the world' or Satanic? Our oldest is moving schools to be closer to the new house and one of the Christian schools we were considering has a policy that they can't listen to any Contemperary Christian Music, etc. due to the beat and lyrics being worldly. They obviously haven't listened to bands like Flatfoot 56, Pillar, Flyleaf or Day of Fire. I'm not sure the lyrics could be much more overtly Christian than those. I always think of a question posed to Family Force 5 was awesome when they were asked about why their lyrics aren't 'Christian' enough and the response was that they're on stage every night talking about Jesus and God's love for us. What are we doing with that affect. That had a profound influence on me and thinking of how I critquie other people that are serving Christ. This is an awesome interview with FF5. Just found it while trying to find the one I reference.

Time to sign off for the night.

My toe is no longer constantly throbbing. That's a good thing.

It sounds like my kids are all asleep. Yay!

For Jason ... I love cheese

And so it starts

wow - my first blog post. You'd think after being in IT for many moons now that I'd have started a blog long ago. I didn't really think of it much until vacation in Aruba a few weeks ago when I busted up a toe and my wife said I needed a blog to post pictures of it on. Facebook is good but not quite as easy to use (I'm hoping).

In any event, for those that are 'in the know' life is finally settling down around here. The past month has been a never-ending train of to-do lists and traveling. Back in January we made an offer on a house that was accepted so we started packing. Closed on February 25, left for Aruba vacation on February 28. While in Aruba I managed to bust up a toe which has moved to the entire foot. Of course it was the second full day there so I got to deal with it the next three. On vacation. In Aruba. Like I'm really going to sit and prop it up with ice on it ... I am sorta regretting that now. Makes it very difficult to walk, shift gears on a motorcycle or keep from being called gimpy or crip. At least the weather was perfect and the pool was relaxing. The twins weren't so sure about the five hour flight from Atlanta to Aruba but did reasonably well for being not quite two.

Came back from Aruba and started moving to the new house. Starting the following Monday I had jury duty for a week. Murder trial in Myrtle Beach. Much more frequent than I'd like to think. The paper continues to rant about the biker weeks and noise and crime that happens during the month of May (even saw a sticker on an SUV on my way home today which said 'Stop the MAY-hem', I made sure to rap the pipes at him real loud a couple of times on the way past). The thing that seems to be overlooked or ignored is the common crime. Just today there were three stories on the local non-news website (www.thesunnews.com) about prostitues being arrested. There was a double shooting in Socastee and much other totally non-biker related crime. I'm supremely happy that I don't live in MB city limits and have to deal with the batch of incompetent fools that are city council.

On with the show .. at least that's what I did after jury duty. Leaving super early Saturday morning for Ameila Island FL and the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance (http://www.ameliaconcours.org/). My bro talks about it much more intelligently than I can on his blog (http://foremostcarguy.blogspot.com/). Suffice it to say that there were way to many cool cars to see with a busted up foot. We were there for 'Dawn Patrol". This requires getting out of bed at an ungodly hour to see the cars drive on the show field. All the while getting yelled at by a psycho lady on a hill, hoping to get free Hagerty hats and donuts and trying to not get run over by the many Dusenburgs, Ferraris, Rolls, Bentleys, etc.

Finally back home and back at work. Loads of fun trying to catch up on the hundreds of e-mails that I couldn't really deal with on a Blackberry. Figuring out why card conversions aren't the easiest thing to handle as well as ordering equipment for a new branch. Why can't Cisco keep numbering schemes consistent and finally ... why in the world wouldn't you check that your monitor is TURNED ON before calling IT in a really crappy mood that your computer 'just won't work and it needs to NOW!'

At least I have an amazingly awesome wife who went to buy me more guitar effects pedals today. She doesn't really understand what they do but know that I enjoy it and she's willing to support that. How cool is that?! Now I need to get enough patch cables to actually play all of them at the same time!