SHINE

ALL DONE!!!

2008-05-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

What's up, people! Why you hear at the OLD blog? Wanna see the shiny new one? Head over to http://www.jasonhunt.us and click on Blog!

Almost time.....

2008-04-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Well, we're testing the new website now, so it shouldn't be much longer before it and the blog are up and running! Are you excited? I'm excited!!!

Hee hee hee!

2007-12-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

And the site is DOWN....... :-) Upgrades in progress. You know it's been two years since my website saw any significant improvements. Hopefully in a week or two, there will be some BRAND NEW FUNNESS on the web!!

In the meantime! Why don't you check out the newest contenders for the Inner Circle!

Raychel Raye

Megan Renee

Natalie

Joanna Mills

Annette Wood

Teacher Kim

Trudi Rose

Britty Joy

Rose

Kim V.

Tori

Brittany Reier

Tomiah

Shelby Diehl

Tiffany

Elizabeth

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE, EVERYBODY!!

2007-12-24T10:28:00.000-08:00

Howdy, howdy, howdy! Can you believe it? Christmas is already here again! Wow, this year has gone by quickly. Well, relatively so. Maybe not quickly enough at some points. Boo for school. :-) So, I am sitting here in the living room watching the Muppet Christmas Caol (one of my ALL TIME favorite movies) because I am a little under the weather today.

Where did we get that phrase? I mean, really. Random. Under the weather? What does weather have to do with my health? Anyway, I digress.

I have had a cold for the past few days and though I am feeling much better today, I am still not back at my best. Normally, I wouldn't mind since it isn't a big deal to have a cold, but it means that we had to postpone recording our fake Christmas album. THAT bums me out because I was really looking forward to singing "Silent Night." Grady's version is so good!! Oh well. That's life. Maybe we'll do a fake spring album or something. :-) Or maybe we'll have Christmas in February! YEAH!!!

Have any of you ever been over to NORAD's Santa tracking website? If you have kids at home, this is a GREAT one to watch as a family. NORAD tracks Santa's progress around the globe as he delivers his presents so that your kids know exactly when to go to bed. :-)

That was random, but it was on my mind today. Enjoy!!

I hope that you each have a WONDERFUL Christmas!!! I was trying to think of a Christmas gift to get for all of my faithful blog readers, but I was at a complete loss. I am afraid that you'll just have to make do with LOADS more Christmas music! If your browser doesn't load the music, clear your cache and sing along to some Christmas jams!!!!

Music Player Updated!

2007-12-20T21:37:00.001-08:00

The music player has been updated! You know, just in case you didn't get that from the title. :-) First off, a whole BUNCH of new songs have been added, so turn your speakers up and have a listen! Secondly, the new version should force your browser to download the new player, but if it doesn't, you will need to clear your browser cache. And if you are using Internet Explorer and it is still not working, PLEASE consider downloading a new browser. Firefox and Opera are both excellent alternatives and completely free. Finally, I have included a playlist on the left so that you can see what is in the player. Have fun!

Vacation has begun!

2007-12-20T00:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I am now officially on vacation!!! Is my apartment clean? No. Did I even finish all of my laundry before I left? No. Is it better than it was? Well, yes. But I choose not to dwell upon it! I will just have to head down the day before Truett moves in and REALLY clean it all up. I started with the best intentions yesterday; really I did. I was going to get the whole place cleaned up and rearranged so that my new roommate, Truett, could move in unhindered in January, but I am afraid that tragedy struck.

I found "The Office" online. Suddenly I was sucked into some kind of weird parallel universe where co-workers have arguments with fake artificially intelligent computer systems and others have dueling Christmas parties and others turn into vampires...

So, I didn't get much done. :-) TODAY, I actually DID get a lot accomplished. I mean, you can see the carpet now. What. That's a good thing. Of course, you can no longer see the countertops or the tables since everything from the floor is now on them, but that's just an insignificant detail. Stop dwelling on it. Sheesh, some people can NOT let stuff go!

I am now sitting at my parents house relishing the fact that Christmas is ALMOST here and I am officially out of school, away from Waco, and enjoying those two facts immensely. Tonight, we all played a little Texas Hold'em. And by all, I mean my mom, dad, sister, and Truett. It was Truett's first time and he might have won if we hadn't gotten bored and given up. But it got down to just the two of us and that's notsomuch with the fun. Oh, who am I kidding? HE WOUlD NEVER HAVE TAKEN ME! ;-) I am a sucker for a poker game, did you know? I don't gamble, so I won't play for real money, but I LOVE to see all those brightly colored chips sitting in front of me - especially when they came from someone else. Hee hee hee.

I did, however, have one downer moment in my day. I am putting it here after all that funness so that maybe no one will actually read this paragraph. Remember the two languages I am taking? Latin and Greek? Otherwise known as the languages spoken by torturers, demons, and the IRS? Well, I knew early on last semester that they were going to be a problem. As finals drew near, I knew that it was going to take an absolute miracle to pass these classes. I did have one ray of light when I found out that I only needed to pass the classes (D) to move on to the second level and didn't need a C like most progressive courses. Anyway, the finals definitely did NOT go very well, so I am sure you can see where this is going.....

I passed both classes. I can't believe you thought I failed. :-) I wasn't going to look until after New Year's so that I wouldn't have anything to dampen the holidays or my birthday, but, on a whim, I decided to take a gander tonight. And there you go!! Woo hoo! Go me!! I am TOTALLY multi-lingual. Hahahaha.

So, there you go. I have a worry free month ahead of me during which I hope to accomplish lots of things I've wanted to do for a while. Merry Christmas, all!

By the way, I heard lots of nice things from people who listened to the Candlelight Carol I put up in my last post. Everybody seems to like it lots and to be really surprised to hear me sing...which makes me a little hurt, now that I think about it. Come on? How could I NOT be a singer?? I look just like Pavoratti! Hahahaha. Okay, no. No, I don't. Anyway, thank you for all of the delightful e-mails you have been sending! For those of you who have not sent an e-mail...I'm just assuming you think I stink and that's fine but you can keep your e-mail!! :-D Anyway, if you are interested, I have one more song from the Christmas program that you may download. The song is one of my favorites, "One Small Child," but I do not like this recording as much. I don't really start to sound good until the last verse. So maybe you just listen to that verse, okay? Thanks, you're a doll. hahahahaha.

Christmas Partying!

2007-12-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

Hello, everybody!! Sorry for my prolonged absence, but let me make it up to you! Let's begin by telling you about my weekend...

The weekend actually began on Thursday as I hightailed it out of Waco to rehearse for the Christmas program on Sunday. Choir rehearsals are the highlight of my week. There were a great many sorry school weeks instantly remedied by a choir rehearsal. My fellow choir members are HYSTERICAL! And not to mention completely nuts. I mean, some of these people put ME to shame in the psycho department. I don't know why I don't share more stories with you...[insert introspective look here]

Did you get my introspective look? 'Cuz it was a good one.

ANYWAY, after rehearsal I headed over to the Saylaks and hanged (hahahha) out with Suzy and her parents for a while. The next day, I did a whole bunch of nothing but answer e-mail, watch television, and shop a bit with Suzy. Diana came in that night and we got ready for our Movie/Chocolate marathon. Our menu included chocolate pretzels, Whitman chocolates, chocolate-covered cherries, chocolate haystacks, chocolate pastries with Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Goobers, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and loads of chocolate candies. MMMmmMmmMmmMmmmm.....so good!! We made it through Elf and half of the Polar Express before Diana realized that Sophie had gotten out and, well, you all know how that ended. Diana had to go home Sunday evening and face a house full of Sophie's toys and things - not a pretty prospect. Thankfully, one of her friends from school had already broken into her house and boxed it all up for her.

I've officially changed my mind. I know longer hate people. I love people.

Saturday, I had two Christmas parties to attend. The first was at the home of five of my FAVORITE people EVER!! Tracy, Bill, Chris, Brianna, and Angel. We had a gift exchange that awarded me a snazzy portable grinder thing...which I just realized sounds dorky, but I don't care! It's cool! I ground a hole straight through the walls from my room to Richard and Nick's room so we can tie a string to two cans and play the telephone game.

Okay, I made that up.

After we did the gift exchange bit, the guys headed outside to play laser tag. Yes, I know, we are all grown adults, but you know what? Turns out that laser tag is transcendent. It is fun at any age. :-)

Then we headed over to Victoria's house for the second party. This one was populated by Diana's closest group of friends from high school and was a blast as well! We made pizzas and had a few drinks then headed back to the Saylak's so that Diana and I could butcher the rest of the room in Guitar Hero. :-) Those in attendance who had their butts whooped were Lisa, Mark, Gje, Vic, Clint, Preston, Dianna, Eva, and Nathan Gay Day. Fun times.

Now, that brings us to Sunday morning. HELLO, FUN! Thank you for coming! Sunday morning was our Christmas program at Zion and it went really well! This is the first year in a while that we haven't done a Christmas cantata, but the a la carte approach worked really well. We sang through a bunch of old Christmas Carols that rarely see the light of day. Christmas Day. WOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

So, funny story... Last week, I mentioned to Annette that Diana's Divas and a Dude were singing and she asked if we recorded it. Wellllll, we DID record it, but the solo mics came through with wayyyy too much distortion. So, I sent her the recording of Candlelight Carol from the Christmas program because I have a solo in it. I am pretty sure she liked it because she put it up on the Haygoods message board.

And MySpace.

And in an e-mail.

Hahahahaha. So, Zion, meet Internet. Internet, meet Zion.

Now, for the funny stuff...In addition to the link at the top, you should check out these videos...

Hee hee hee.

A Sad Night

2007-12-15T00:15:00.000-08:00

Hey, everybody! I had originally planned to tell you all about me amazing Christmas weekend, but I we had a sad day instead. Tonight, our movie marathon was cut short because my best friend's dog disappeared. It's a long story that I'll get into later but the short version is that she was hit by a car and did not make it. That said, I just am not feeling festive tonight. Please keep Diana in your prayers and I'll talk to you all tomorrow.

2007-12-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

Hey, everybody! Just a quick note to say OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!

THE MUSIC PLAYER IS WORKING!!!

And I am in MMA and can't enjoy it!! But I know that YOU WILL!!!! I cannot even tell you how excited I am right now because I have some AMAZING new music to send your way!

P.S. If you are having problems using the music player, stop using Internet Explorer. Firefox, my friends. It's stable, it's powerful, it's easy to use, and it's FREE! Make the switch now!!

I HATE FINAL EXAMS!!! AND SCHOOL BY EXTENSION!

2007-12-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

Well, TWO DOWN, only four to go.

Bah. Four. Can you believe it??? Today I had two finals, African American Literature and American Folk Music. Allow me to tell you about them

AA Lit is an obnoxious class. I like it a lot and the teacher is great, but there are not many grades in the semester. I, being the terminally bad student that I am, have a pretty low daily averages (I HATE quizzes!) and a low paper grade because I forgot one of them, so I have to ACE this exam. And even then....not sure I can pass. As it stands, I need to bring my grade up 15 points to get a D. That ain't good, ma peeps. But I know that I did well on the exam this morning, so that makes me feel a little better (incidentally, I have had this professor for two semesters and this is the FIRST exam I have passed). I read two books yesterday in preparation for it. hahahaah. Even if I flunk this class, I can still take something else next semester to replace it and be okay. It's just frustrating. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad at school.

The second exam was awesome. I love me some American Folk Music. To start things off, a few weeks ago, the professor asked us in class what the topics of our research papers were going to be. Well, funny thing, I didn't HAVE a topic for my research paper. So, when she got to me, I said, "Uh.....is folk music dying?" So there I was with a truly difficult topic. The next week, we had to give a presentation over our research though the paper itself wasn't due until yesterday. I was second to the last to present and I just started rambling on about how my research indicated that folk music was not only dying, it would be dead in a few generations. Welllllllll, that got my classmates going. These are smart people, dear blog readers, FAR smarter than I am and they started asking all kinds of questions. In fact, the professor had to cut us off so that we could get to the last presentation, but she promised that we could have some time before the final to discuss it more.

Well, DANG IT! That meant I had to write a REAL paper. Anyway, we spent the first twenty minutes or so discussing my research and then the professor walked around the room and handed us each a Christmas card (there are only seven of us) in which she had written very nice notes and enclosed a Starbucks gift card. How AWESOME is that?? She told us how much she had enjoyed our class and that we were the best class she'd had in many years. It was actually a tearful day because it IS a fun class with some very interesting people and today was our last day together. In fact, one of our number is graduating. Actually, she's done now; that was her last exam. One of my classmates, Casey, is an accomplished folk musician and is playing at a local venue tonight so two of our number and the professor and her husband are going out to see him. I can't go, sadly, since I will be rehearsing in Kurten (singing on the NEXT TWO SUNDAYS!!!!), but it's nice just the same. They are also having a Christmas party on Sunday evening, but I will be in Dallas listening to MY MOM SING!!! That's right, I have a musical family. We rock it hardcore! ;-)

So, that was exam day 1. Tomorrow is the first of my TRULY hard exams, Latin, and I am not prepared for it yet. I am going to try to get loads of sleep tonight and wake up early to get some good studying in before I have lunch with Joel and the exam at 2. PRAY FOR MY LATIN SKILLS!

'Cuz I TOTALLY don't have any. ;-)

Goodnight, all!

FYI

2007-12-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hey, everybody! Just a quick note to let you know that there may some downtime in the next few days as the site is migrated to a new and improved server! Hopefully, all will go well and I will have more control over the MIME type settings that are preventing the music player from doing its thang. So if the site disappears, you know what happened!!

Exams are coming...

2007-12-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

Howdy, everybody! Can you guess where I am?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!

Did you guess ? Because if you did, you are way smart!! And if you didn't, do you not know me at all? :-)

Last week when I was trying like mad to get a research paper....researched...I bought a T-mobile day pass (why can't Starbucks just put in free wireless like every other worthwhile place on the planet?) so that I could upload information and e-mail while I was here. Today, when I walked in and turned my computer on, it magically logged on. SCORE!

Although it just occurred to me that it may automatically charge me. Dang it, gonna have to turn that off.

Anyway, that is NOT what I wanted to talk about. Today is my first "dead day" before exams start on Thursday. Would you like to know how I am taking advantage of that fact? Of course you would. Why else would you be here? Well, to kick things off...

I

SLEPT

IN!

Yessiree, I didn't even pretend to get up until noon. That meant I had to force myself to go back to sleep a few times, but I was easily convinced. I can be very manipulative. It's the first time I have had a full night's sleep in quite some time and it WERE NICE!!!

Yes, I know that ain't grammatically correct, Kim V. Go away. ;-)

Today is finish research paper on the death of folk music/African American Lit reading day. Tomorrow is African American Lit reading/Latin day. All day LATIN! WOO HOOOOOO!!!! Latin desperately needs a whole day. As does Greek. And African American Lit needs a whole day just to catch up on the reading. Those are the three classes whose exams I really need to Ace to pass. Ug.

Double Ug, in fact. Moving right along...

If you have been paying extremely close attention, you should have noticed that the music player looks a tiny bit different today. That's because it is SO CLOSE TO WORKING!!! Really. So close I can taste it. I sent in one more request to my webhost today that should fix all of my problems. Tomorrow, we just might have some Christmas music going on up in here!! It's gonna be good, you wait and see.

So I don't really have anything productive to say today. But perhaps I will bring back an old favorite, eh? Click the title of this post to go to today's VIDEO LINK! Enjoy!!

Washers and interns and plays oh my!

2007-11-29T00:45:00.000-08:00

WOO HOOOO IT'S LATEEEEEEEE!!!!

Did you get that? That was late with EIGHT E's after it!

That's a lot of E's. :-) So, today was kinda interesting and I thought, "Hey, what should I do about my interesting day?" Well, the answer is, of course, BLOG ABOUT IT! Not THAT interesting, don't get too excited. Also, remember how many E's there were. This may be completely incoherent, so ignore that part.

Let's start with yesterday and pretend like it is part of today. One of my requirements for my final semester of school ever in the whole world in all of time ever is that I complete an internship in a writing field. Well, this has been kind of a thorn in my side for a number of reasons. 1. I don't have time to go looking around for an internship. 2. The internships on the university's list do nothing to excite me. 3. Let's face it, I hate school and am having trouble caring. I realize how that sounds, but BAH! That's how I feel.

YOU CAN TAKE MY FOOD, YOU CAN TAKE MY HOME, BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE MY FEELINGS.

I don't know either.

Anyway, the internship has been threatening to stress me out for a while now. Yesterday, one of my classmates walked into the room and immediately commandeered my help to fix her website which was due last week :-) Sadly, all of her pictures had disappeared. Eh...it happens. Anyway, it turns out that she has a friend who works for a local newspaper and had been telling him how much I had been helping her with her website. Now, the professional half of my new site has been completed (well...ALMOST completed) for a few weeks so she showed it to him (And yes, you may go look at it too. www.jasonhunt.us/professional). Apparently he was impressed because he told her to give me his e-mail address because he has an internship in graphic design for me.

Um........I don't want to oversell this but HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!?!?!? That's right, ladies and gentleman, I am in high demand!

You may now demand me.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

:-) So, that was a bit of good news. TODAY....Today, I went to see "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller at the university. The only one of Miller's plays that I have seen is "Death of a Salesman" and I was not impressed but this one was GREAT!! Plus, the lead actress was so cute!

OOps, did I write that out loud? May just have to look her up.....

Anyway, after it was over, I didn't really want to go home so I took off for Starbucks, ordered me an eggnog latte, or, as it is known in intelligent circles, Christmas-in-a-cup, and drove around for a while listening to Christmas music. Oh, who am I kidding. I was JAMMING to Christmas music! I really can't wait until I fix the new music player because I have some GOOD stuff to show you! When I got home, I played a little Xbox since my workload tomorrow is light and was just on my way to bed......when IT happened.

I happened to glance up at the washer/dryer because it's little folding door was open and noticed that it is not the same shape as it was this morning. And that ain't good. It looks like somebody took out the linebacker pads (that's a real thing, right?) and smashed into the front of it as hard as they could. Now, I know that I didn't do it. And both roommates claim to be innocent, but there hasn't been anyone else in our apartment today.....so I think that one of them is LYING! DUN Dun dunnnnn....

My money's on the albino one. Although it could have been the normal one, you never know. He could be crafty underneath all that.....I don't really know what the end of the sentence was supposed to be. I told you, lots of E's.

Hmmm....as I am typing this, I recall that I DID hear a loud noise in the living room today, so maybe it DID happen on its own. I just don't see how that's possible. Either way, I AIN'T PAYING FOR A NEW ONE!!!!!!!

That is all.

If I could get a little deep on your bahinds...

2007-11-23T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today, Tim posted a new blog (which you should check out if you haven't) in which he finally spells out some of the reasons his family won't be performing in Branson after next year. It's a great post because it's honest and insightful in its own right, but I was struck this evening by something that Shanna (fancy that) wrote in her comment on the post. It reminded me of a quote that I posted YEARS ago by Gil Bailie. The quote goes something like this:

"Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is men who have come alive."

I think this is my favorite quote in the entire world because it addresses something often forgotten. It is very easy in our fast-paced, stressful world to get bogged down by the obligations we feel toward any number of things. There are so many things that we have been told by people throughout our lives that we MUST do...You MUST go to college, you MUST get a sensible, stable job, you MUST get married and start a family, you MUST grow up to be like everyone else. Forcing ourselves into that mold is one of the major things that is poisoning our society.

Have you ever met one of those people who is so extraordinarily passionate about life that it's contagious? You know the type. After spending 10 minutes with them, you feel like you could conquer the world on a whim. These are the people who stared at the world around them and said, "No. I refuse to allow you to define who I am." These are the people who decided that they were going to be part of the few who never let common sense stifle their dreams.

Do not ask what the world needs. In doing so, you lose sight of the things that make you who you are. Ask what makes you come alive, be it outlandish, insane, uncommon, or frightening, and go do that. Because what the world needs MOST are PEOPLE who have come ALIVE.

Happy Day after Thanksgiving, everybody!!

2007-11-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe I should write "Happy Leftover Day!" ;-) Did you all have splendiferous Thanksgivings? Do you have lots of interesting tales? One of the best parts of family holidays like this is the sheer number of stories that are vaulted into posterity each year. What stunts did YOUR family pull?

The biggest one for us this year is the fault of my father. He waltzed into the living room two nights ago (Well, not waltzed. My dad doesn't really do dancing) and announced that he had invited a guest to Thanksgiving dinner. The invited gentleman's wife was going to be out of town, so my dad asked him if would like to eat with us.

Oh, stop Awwwwing my dad. Let me tell you why this was, despite the initial appearance, a STUPID idea! Oh, I am not that heartless, stop judging me!!!!

Reason #1: Do not, after your wife and mother-in-law have spent the entire day cooking, tell her that you have spontaneously decided that she will have to find enough food for someone else. Do not TELL her these things. You may, most certainly, call before offering the invitation and make sure it is okay, but do not issue orders. People don't like orders.

Reason #2: Do NOT invite someone over that is disliked intensely by the rest of your family, no matter how much you like him!

We didn't think it was going to matter anyway, since he called and cancelled early in the day. Life went on as usual. None of us were mad at this poor guy....it wasn't his fault he was invited, so we couldn't really feel badly toward him....until he called in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and said that he had changed his mind. Then my extremely sensitive father said, "Sure! Come on down."

We were thrilled. Once visitor arrived at our house, he promptly told us that his wife would be back in town shortly, he just didn't want to turn down a free meal.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA. He's got moxy, I'll give him that, but can you understand why he is not my favorite person? -)

My heart isn't really into blogging at the moment, I just wanted to write SOMETHING......maybe I'll give you a fun video to watch...

How about my FAVORITE Christmas commercial EVER! Holidays are comin', holidays are comin', holidays are comin'...

The One With...

2007-11-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

...no more "The One Withs"

That's right, they're going away. A thing of the past! I had several goals for this newest incarnation of my website, but I had no intention of putting them into practice until January. Hahahahaha. That changed tonight. You'll notice that the music player at the top of the page doesn't exactly...well, it doesn't work. I think I am having issues with a server setting that I cannot find. I still don't have it figured out yet. Anyway, one of my goals was to migrate the entire blog from BlogSpot (Blogger's hosting site) to my own website and that happened tonight in an attempt to fix the playlist. So, no music yet, but an even bigger obstacle out of the way! I'll keep working on it as often as I can because I have some GREAT music for you!!

I hope that you all had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and are geared up for the Christmas season!

The One With Thanksgiving

2007-11-20T23:16:00.000-08:00

Wow. I don't think I realized just how STRESSFUL this semester has been until I pulled out of my apartment parking lot and headed for my parents' house for Thanksgiving. I mean, I got in the car and all of a sudden angels descended from above and began dancing and praising on the hood of my truck before four very astonished eyes. Yes, I wrote four. Me and Bear; you didn't think I left him all alone for Thanksgiving, did you?

You probably don't believe the angel bit, do you? Well, it's true. I have the foot indentions all over my truck to prove it, so there!!!

Okay, I made that up. There are no foot indentions, but there are feathers in the radiator! M.S. It keeps highlighting the word "indentions" to tell me that it is misspelled. Which it is not. Which means I must have made up a new word. Congratulations to me.

Yes, I made that up too. You're kinda stepping on my point, you know?

Anyway, I was practically glowing with prospective vacation as I drove away from Waco. Gosh, I despise that little town. Hahahahaha. It's true! There are many people who will extol the virtues of Waco, but I had them thrown into the luny bin so now the whole of the population sings the truth: WACO STINKS!! Hmmm....that was kinda mean. And definitely does NOT sound very thankful. So nevermind, don't read that.

Tomorrow I have a big old bundle of homework to do since I am taking Thanksgiving itself COMPLETELY off, but it somehow seems less daunting away from Waco. Will it get done? Well, it's all due the day I get back, so it HAS to. But to answer my question, no, it will not get done. :-) I love being me.

Just the same, I hope that you have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and don't let this now empty site depress you. I may have to postpone to launch of the full site for a few weeks, so how about a nice Christmas theme for the blog? With snazzy new Christmas music? Sound good? Good! Because you don't really have any say in the matter........

P.S. M.S. stands for Mid-Script. I couldn't very well write P.S. in the MIDDLE of a blog, now could I? That wouldn't be very POST, would it?

P.P.S. If you search Google for kixarse.blogspot.com (which is Tim's blog address), my blog shows up first. BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA. With this power, I could RULE THE WORLD!!!

Important Notice

2007-11-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

Howdy there, WORLD!! Fair warning for you folks out there in cyber space! Over the next few weeks, you may notice a few glitches while we update the site. For instance, very soon the music player will no longer work (You're sad, aren't you? You really enjoyed listening to the same 12 songs for 6 months, didn't you?) and links to download files may be broken. If you come across one of these broken links, PLEASE drop me a line so that I can make sure it is fixed when the new site launches over Thanksgiving. MUCHAS!!

-Jason

The One With the Choirs

2007-11-12T01:28:00.000-08:00

Well, it is now 49 in the morning and I CANNOT SLEEP! I hate when this happens. Invariably, I am awake almost all night long onlyt to sleepwalk through my school day doing things like conversing with trash cans or taking notes with chalk or sitting on thin air. It's not good.

Oh well. :-) I am awake NOW!!! So I thought I would drop by and say hello. I had a couple of deep things that I wanted to write yesterday, but I ain't feeling so deep at the moment, so we'll just skip it. In place of those deep things, I think I'll share some humorous performances... Let's go YouTubin', everyone!

You may have seen this before, but it's worth sharing anyway. It makes me laugh almost uncontrollably! Well, not really. But I did laugh. Tetris is the best.

So anyway, that video is very funny and I'm glad I found it, but I what I was REALLY looking for was a video of a complaints choir for my American Folk Music classmates. Yes, we do know how to have fun. So, here is the complaints choir too. HYSTERICAL! I think I'm gonna start one...

And I leave you with one final thought. It's the happiest thought in the whole world...

The One About Waiting on God

2007-11-05T13:21:00.000-08:00

Shanna, one of our newest readers (you can read through some of her comments on previous posts), sent me an e-mail last week from a guy named Micah Parker. He is an inspirational speaker who had something very insightful to say about waiting on God. I think that the most inspiring things we hear are those that are common sense, but often overlooked. This story falls into that category so I wanted to share it with you. SOOOOO mad props to SHANNA for bringing it to my attention. Enjoy!

Picture an 8th grade boy sitting in McDonalds with his basketball team. The team had just finished 3rd in a tournament and the boy was distraught because he felt responsible for losing a game. He finished his meal, left his ice cream cone on the table, warned his friends not to “mess with it” and went to the bathroom. He was surprised to see that the restaurant was basically empty when he came back. Where did the team go? They were probably hiding around the corner waiting to jump out and scare him or maybe they were sitting on the bus waiting for him. He saw his cone still sitting there and after checking it for salt, ran outside to get on the bus before his coach would get upset for him being late, but there was no bus. He searched the parking lot quickly and noticed the bus had just left and was slowly pulling away so he took off in hot pursuit, jumping over landscaping and cutting through the parking lot to actually pull up to the side of the bus. His short little legs kept up for about 10 steps until the bus pulled away. In desperation, the little guy threw his ice cream cone at the bus and it hit the back window, but the bus kept on going. The boy stood in the street waiting for the red brake lights to come on and one of his friends to hang his head out the window laughing, but it didn’t happen. Maybe he threw his cone at a different bus? Maybe his team had moved the bus and was waiting for him on the other side of the restaurant as a joke. When he checked and the parking lot was empty, the boy walked back into the McDonalds, sat down and wondered what he should do. Their home town was about an hour away. “I’ll just sit and wait, they’ll figure out I’m not there and come back for me,” thought the boy.

After 30 minutes, the manager of the store came out and asked if I was ok. He could tell by my expression that I was either lost or in trouble. I told him what happened but that they’d be back any time now to get me. They let me call my parents who initially didn’t believe me because people were laughing in the backgroundJ. Eventually, someone came and got me, but that was a LONG wait.

This was the first time in my life I experienced what it felt like to “wait upon the Lord.” At first, I wasn’t worried, but as time went by, I started to think I had been abandoned. Time goes so slowly when you are waiting. Whether it’s for a red light or for something more serious like test results from a doctor’s exam, it's tough to wait. One of my favorite songs right now starts out by repeating “strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, as we wait upon the Lord.” This is a great phrase because so often we do the opposite – our strength falls as we wait. This is where God comes in. As our strength falls, He calls us to lean on Him so His strength can be revealed through your waiting.

I’ve been going 100 MPH in my life for the past 17 years as a basketball coach. Recently, God forced me to sit and wait – wait for a job, wait for direction, wait for patience. Initially this was very difficult to do because I wasn’t “waiting on the Lord”; I was trying to make something happen immediately. Through lots of prayer and time spent in the word, I was given peace about where God wants to use me next. Waiting is tough, but it can bring about peace, trust, and wisdom as GOD’S plan is revealed.

One of the greatest “waiters” in the Bible was Daniel. I can’t imagine how LONG it must have felt like WAITING in the Lions den for someone to come get him out. Sometimes God won’t deliver you from your lions den, but he’ll deliver you in your lions den. Sometimes being forced to wait out a difficult situation is better for us in the long run and God’s plan for you is better revealed by allowing you to wait rather than sparing you from the wait. I encourage you to read the book of Daniel and that God’s “strength will rise as you wait upon the Lord.”

The One With Tim's Blog

2007-11-04T08:55:00.001-08:00

Howdy there, Haygoods!

Whoops, wrong site. :-) But since I've already mentioned the Haygoods in this post...

The oldest of the Haygood clan, Tim, decided recently that he wants to tell it like it is concerning his family, the business, and his DECISIVELY far from normal life and figured that a BLOG would be the best way to do it!

He's new to the whole blogging bit, so give him some time to really get things up and running. In the meantime, however, surf on over to kixarse.blogspot.com and check it out!

The One With the HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2007-10-31T17:13:00.001-07:00

Hello, hello, hello! And Happy Halloween to you all!!! Have I mentioned that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays? I know, I know. Christians shouldn't like Halloween. Welllll, I do not ascribe to that view. :-) Anyway, I have neither the time nor the money to truly celebrate. Maybe next year. I AM, however, going to the Halloween Organ Recital at the music school. Last year's was SO MUCH FUN! They play all kinds of creepy music (played best on the organ, you know) and dress in crazy costumes and act out skits and pull pranks and stunts. It's GREAT! I hate organ music and I loved it, that ought to just tell you right there.

ALSO, in honor of Halloween I thought that I would share a little story with you. For the past two weeks, I have been counting down the days to Halloween over on the Haygoods message board by writing a little bit of a Halloween tale every night. It has been well received, so I thought I might share it over here too. Now, if you have no idea who the Haygoods are, please ignore the the fact that the story revolves around them and just enjoy the narrative. Actually, if you have no idea who they are, go explore their website and find out. MUCH FUN! The story is pretty long, so I will not be offended if you get bored and do not want to read it all. But I WOULD value your feedback. Let me know what you think! Okay? :-) Here are the links...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Showdown: Part 1
Showdown: Part 2
Showdown: Part 3
Showdown: Part 4

The final part of the story is designed to look like a post on the message board. Read it HERE

The One With the Unplugging

2007-10-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

So...I've decided that in the spirit of change, I am unplugging my life.

That's sounds life-support related. Wait, that's not what I mean. ;-)

I have been in something of a state of flux lately. I love it when things start to change, you know? Some people hate change. I think that humans, on the whole, are extrememly averse to change. I am not like that. Actually, if we are extending the generalization, I suppose that makes me not human. Hee hee hee. I can live with that! Me=alien! WOO HOO!!!

Anyway, a lot of stuff has been moving around in my life and today, I decided to make one more change. Did you know that I used to read? I mean, REALLY read. In my lifetime, I've read hundreds of books. Maybe even thousands.

I said maybe.

Anyway, the point is, I don't anymore. More and more of my time is taken by school and othe pursuits and it seems like technology is stealing more than it's fair share too. Now, instead of reading, I am more likely to watch television or a movie, or play a video game, or mess around on facebook and myspace, or pour over the message board like a person obsessed, or any number of eletrically powered activities. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with those things, I don't think they are really helpng me become the person I want to be.

So I am taking steps to remedy that.

1. My main computer is sitting on my desk completely powered down. That may not seem like a big thing to you, but that computer has not been powered down for more than a few hours at a time in years. YEARS! It houses most of my major editing software, some of my games, and all of my television episodes. It's a big deal. Plus, it sucks up electricity like a mother (what a weird phrase. Why do we say that?) and since our bill last month was TWO HUNDRED NINETY DOLLARS, turning it off can't be a bad idea.

2. I am leaving my cell phone in the car. It is no longer going into the school with me, because it only serves as a distraction.

3. I am closing my laptop when I am home. Unless I have a specific task on which to work, I think I'll do something else.

4. I am limiting my internet browsing time to once a day. I'll check MySpace, Facebook, e-mail, and the message board once per day unless something important comes up.

So what do you think? Noble effort? Possible? I guess we'll find out. :-) Not that this will affect my blog readers (again...both of you), since I write so rarely anyway. Hahahaha. Ah well. Catch ya' later!

The One With the Sister

2007-10-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

I know that the majority of my readers (all both of you) are acquainted with my sister, Jenn. She's an interesting individual. Right now, her life is in a bit of turmoil because she is trying to figure out just what she is supposed to be doing with her life and she is finding that difficult. She now feels like she wants to go to Cosmetology school, but needs our father to pay for it as it's somewhere in the realm of $9000 for the six month course.

He is somewhat reluctant. I can't fault him for that. He has been remarkably understanding as she and I have grown up and dealt with switching colleges (four between the two of us, not including Cosmetolgy school) and majors, my taking a year off to work, her eventually dropping out to work, etc. At this point, he is wary about shelling out more money for a new school when Jenn's track record does not instill confidence as to the possibility of Jenn's graduating.

All this to say, Jenn tends to follow a pattern. She gets a new idea, talks it over with Dad who promptly shoots it down in as inconsiderate a way as he can manage, and calls me to vent about it and figure out how to change his mind. I'm fine with that, that's why I am here. The problem is that the last two (that I recall, probably more than that) of these phones call have ended with an angry *CLICK* in my ear for not telling her exactly what she wants to hear. I can't fault Dad for being trepidatious about her newest endeavor, nor do I have any right to change his mind. He was not completely without grace. He told her that if she kept a job for six months to show him that she was serious, he would consider sending her to Cosmetology school (I have no idea why I keep capitalizing that). She, obviously, thinks his requirement insulting. I can understand her point of view, but I also understand his. And, truthfully, I am on his side. He wants to see if this desire is going to fade in a month like previous ones had and I think that's a wise way to go. I told her that it wasn't an unfair request and since she has no money to pay for school herself, she has no other option. I said it nicer than that. Anyway, that earned me the latest hang up.

I have since decided that to continue these conversations with her places me squarely within the glutton-for-punishment category and sent her a text message telling her not to call me anymore. Does that make me a bad brother? Perhaps. I mean, it IS a little harsh, but I am tired of this stupidity. She refuses to learn to be respectful, so I am going to treat her as I would any other person on the planet. You hang up on me, you lose the right to speak to me on the phone.

Maybe I'm just mad. Although, I don't really feel mad.........Tomorrow, I'll probably feel differently.

Or probably not. Sorry, Jenn. Talk to you wen next I visit Dallas.

The One With Today

2007-10-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hello, world!!!!!!

I really miss blogging, how ridiculous is that? Actually, I REALLY miss spare time!! Remember those days when you when get home and be able to veg out on the couch for an afternoon and just watch whatever bad television show happened to come on? I haven't gotten to veg out in twenty-eight years.

Yes, I am a little dramatic, are you new here? :-)

This week was psycho nuts, so why don't I just walk you through it. Good mixed with the bad because THAT'S HOW LIFE IS, MY FRIENDS! On Monday, Jenn and I decided to go to the fair because she doesn't have a job and I realized that Baylor can live without me for a day. We had a BLAST!!! In fact, we recorded the first Road Trippin Short, but I haven't had time to put it together yet. In fact, it's really not very good, so I may not put it together at all. I don't think anybody would enjoy like Branson. Gosh, that one is hard to live up to. We went through evyerthing we could, even though it was raning like nobody's business. And they had BUMBLEBEE there! Chevy brought out the actual camero that played Bumblebee in Transformers. It was so cool! So I stole it. Tuesday was spent in the slammer with a smelly guy named Shirley who talked to his shoe. It's okay, though, because they don't have any proof. I hid the car in my drievway. I know that sounds like a horrible hiding place, but the best place to hide something is in plain view, right? They'll never figure it out.

Actually, Tuesday meant heading back to school and then staying up all night studying for a Greek test on Wednesday morning only to find on Wednesday that the test had been moved to Friday. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Not only did that mean that my all-nighter had been wasted, but that put my Latin and Greek tests on the same day....again. Sooooo not fun. And now you know how my Friday went.

BUT Friday evening was fun. Truett and I went out to the OCS parking lot and recorded some sound effects for my upcoming television pilot, then he and I, Kyle, and Jenn watched The Game. I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!! So many twists and turns, it's GREAT! Then I spent a few hours working on a story I've been writing and went to sleep.

Which brings us to today. Today is the day of NOTHING!!!!!! My responsibility load is lessened today, so I am enjoying it. I think I am going to get my oil changed since it's 5,000 miles overdue, then work on the song that Diana, Suzy, Emily, Mellie, and I are singing sometime in the next month or so. OH! And I am going to read a book! And watch Drake and Josh! And maybe do a TINY bit of homework IF I feel like it.

But right now, I am going to take a shower. Adios, readers (not that I have any readers anymore since it's been so long)! Hasta luego!

The One With the Take Out Art

2007-09-28T12:43:00.001-07:00

Have you ever put both contacts in the same eye? It's a fun experience. I stood there in front of the mirror and put a gorgeous green contact into my right eye. Then I took another gorgeous green contact and put it into my right eye.

That's how psychotic I am. It took me a minute to realize that I was still half blind and my right eye hurt. Hee hee hee.

By the way, today when I was walking across campus, some guy was walking toward me chatting away on his cell phone when he suddenly reached up, closed off one nostril, and blew his nose. You'll notice that no where in that description did I mention a tissue or a handkerchief or even a shirtsleeve. He just blew snot through the air and onto the sidewalk so I shot him.

Do you think that was wrong? :-)

I also wanted to start a little something new. Believe it or not, I AM working on the new site and I have some fun ideas to implement, but I need your help. I'll tell you a little more after this next story.

This week, my sister came down for a visit so we went to On the Border for dinner...becuase we ALWAYS go to On the Border for dinner. MMMmmmMmmMmMM... Anyway, she did not finish all of her flautas, so we stuck them in a to-go box and went on our merry way. Now, we, being obsessed with making every little facet of life a joke, have a task when it comes to to-go boxes. No to-go box may go home without a poem or song written across the top to accompany it. They don't have to be good. In fact, we work very hard to make them utterly retarded. THIS week, the poem (penned by ME!) went something like this...

"I left the food inside the box
for weeks and weeks and weeks unstopped.
The food, it changed from red to green
to brown to grey and back again.
Yesterday brought a new surprise
when in the box, I found eyes!"

Yes, it's stupid! That's the point. :-) It's okay though because On the Border appreciated my efforts. When I got my receipt, this is what I saw...

Yup, you saw correctly. I am the #1 Guest!! It's because I'm amazing. ;-)

Anyway, here it is...The next time you are out to eat and you have to get a to go box, write a poem of your own, take a picture of it and send it to TakeOut@JasonHunt.us

Once I get enough, I'll put them all on their own page! WOO HOO!!! BE EXCITED!!!!

The One With the CAFFEINE!!

2007-09-24T01:39:00.000-07:00

I don't drink caffeine. Or eat it, I should add. No No-Doze for me! It's a stumulant, it causes break-outs, it's just not good stuff. I guess you could call me a caffeine lightweight. If caffeine were alcohol, I would be a cheap date.

That was a horrible thing to write. Sorry about that. ANYWAY!! The point is that when I DO drink something caffinated, it tends to have a rather dramatic effect. The immediate results are that I talk even faster than I do normally (which puts me right up there with that guy who used to do the Micro-Machine commercials...and one weird episode of Sesame Street) and I move at speeds BARELY sub-light.

No, I'm seious. I ate breakfast with the Parisians last time I had caffeine. Just took off running across the ocean like Dash from the Incredibles. Tomorrow (today, actually....a few hours actually actually), I have a Latin test immediately followed by a Greek test, so it was exceedingly important that I not sleep tonight. So I had a Venti White Mocha Latte, which had twice as much espresso as normal thanks to the kindly barista who felt for my plight and a big ole' huge JOLT cola.

Which is why I am posting a post at 3:45 in the morning. Hee hee hee. The LAST time this happened, I didn't sleep for two days straight. Hopefully this time won't be quite as bad. Yes, I know, I know. "It's unhealthy, Jay!" "You'll hurt yourself, Jay!" "That being in two places at once thing is a cool trick, Jay!" "The Mormons are praying for you, Jay!"

Did you know Mormons can't have caffeine? Now you do. You're informed.

Eh, one night without sleep isn't going to hurt me, so calm down. It's kinda fun. I really like the night and I have always thought that our circadian rhythms are reversed. We ought to be away at night when the Big Bad UV Monster is asleep. Oh well. Hahahahaha THIS IS STUPID! STOP READING THIS! Don't you have anything better to do with your time?

No? Me either. We should get together.

This morning , I went to church then to Mellie's house for lunch. It was great, of course...I'm telling you, this family can COOK!!! MMMmmMmMMMmMm....Marky, I need more curried chicken. Do you hear me? NEED!!!! While we were sitting there, Suzy decided to proclaim that she had a cure for the hiccups. The following video fortuitusly (how do spell that word? Is that even a word? It is now. I made a new one.) records her methodology...

I couldn't make this stuff up. Believe me, I try.

The One With the Aggies

2007-09-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well, this post has been a LONG time coming! Eh...only a week, but STILL! For some reason tonight, I can't seem to fall asleep, so I thought, "Hmmm, I'll do something semi-productive with me time and finally make a new post!"

Last Saturday I was....are you ready for this...at an Aggie football game. Yes, I know! Diana's father was nice enough to invite me to a game, so I figured, "Why not?" Answer to that question still to come.

Have you ever been to an Aggie game? Do you know anything about the Aggies? 'Cuz they are NUTS!!!! Seriously. I could tell you stories for days about reasons the Catholic church has them listed as a cult. :-) Hee hee hee. ANYWAY!

I have to admit that I was bored out of my mind. Really. My brain oozed out of my ear, called a cab (with MY cell phone...audacious.), and hauled it out of the stadium. Plus, there weren't enough seats for everyone, so I had this rather large smelly gentleman sitting in my lap the entire game.

Fine, maybe it just felt that way. Point is, it was CRAMPED! It also went into triple overtime.

TRIPLE!!!!!

That's 3. At which point I started eating the gum off the bottom of the seats in the vain hope that one would be carrying a fast-acting, terrorrist-style neurotoxin to put me out of my misery. Alas....nothing except for a nasty taste in my mouth.

All that having been said, let me give you a little taste of the life of the Aggies...I got video.

In this first video, look at the side of the stadium across from us. That sea of maroon is the ENTIRE student body. Yes, they ALL come out to every single game, no matter the weather or any other circumstance. And that overwhelming noise? That's them yelling. Not a whole of thinking going on, just yelling...

This second video is of the Aggie band. They march with military precision and though their shows are not very creative, they ARE impressive. Check it yo...

The One With the Funky Bottles

2007-09-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody! Let me just begin by saying that I do NOT feel like writing a blog post right now.

I know. You definitely want to read now, don't you? The truth is, it is 8:00 am, I still have an hour before my first class, and I already know that today is going to be a rotten day! You knew I was psychic, right? Actually, it's entirely my fault that today is going to be more of Britney Spears "Toxic" day than a Britney Spears "MMC" day.

Wow, that was an absolutely HORRIBLE thing to say! Pretend like I didn't write that, okay? I realize it's early and you probably aren't in the mood to indulge my strangeness.....but so what. Do it anyway! This is MY blog! Not YOUR blog! If I were reading your blog, I would TOTALLY indulge you.

I swear I had a point somewhere. Anyway, today is going to be a dismal waste of a day. Tomorrow should be better and Thursday ought to be grand. By friday, I am hoping to once again walk onto campus with trumpets blazing and those creepy leotard-clad people dangling from the trees by strips of cloth. And people say Baylor squanders tuition money. Bah.

I know what I'll post ono here! As you may or may not know, I converse with Diana's class each year via video. Well, THIS year, we have gone high tech (though the first video hardly showcases that) and I am extremely psyched about filming the next one. They watched these first two videos last week (their first week of school) and seemed to react well...although first graders can be entertained for hours with nothing more than a tube sock...not quite sure how that reflects on the video. ANYWAY!!

The top video is the first full video. It contains a bunch of simply science experiments that we'll explain as the year progresses. The bottom video (which you may have already seen, if you have looked at my MySpace page....gotta throw those MySpacers a bone every now and again.) is just a clip, but the kids loved it! Oh, who am I kidding? Even my sister couldn't stop watching it. It's on HER MySpace now. Enjoy.

BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA! One of my classes was just cancelled. And it is PORUING outside! POURING! Maybe today won't be as bad as I thought. I think that writing a blog entry has had precisely the desired effect. It's kinda like when you don't feel like praying, so you know that is precisely what you should do.

But i think I'm done now. Everyone have a good day!

The One With the New Roommates

2007-08-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

Today I walked into the living room and Richard was lying on the couh while Bear wandered around sniffing. RIchard looked up and said, "Have you ever put Bear on your head like a wig?"

And he was dead serious.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. I have cool roommates. It's going to be a good year :-D

Why are you looking down here? That's it. It's 12:30 in the morning!!! I am going to bed, that's why! I'll write more later!

The One at 4 in the Morning

2007-08-15T01:51:00.000-07:00

WHAT UP, WORLD?!?!?!?!

Yes, yes it IS 4:00 in the morning, what of it? :-) Why am I up this late, you ask?

And thanks for asking, by the way. I am a sucker for polite people.

The truth is, I have no idea why I am still up and ready to rock at 4 in the morning...not that I'm complaining. Summer oficials ends on Thursday, so dern it, I AM GOING TO ENJOY MY LAST DAY OF FREEDOM! All 24 hours of it.

The truth is, I am rocking out to an absolutely AMAZING song. There is an a capella group at USC that is, hands down, the BEST group I have ever heard (Seth, insert jealousy here). I actually ran across Reverse Osmosis on YouTube when I was searching for (get this) reverse osmosis (a water purification process) videos online. Anyway, I am reasonably certain that I posted this video already as a link, but I am so unbelievably hooked on it that I wanted to really do it justice.

This video is Reverse Osmosis performing "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy. Now, this is my favorite Fall Out Boy song of all time and I think.....yes, I am almost certain...that I like this version better. IT'S SO GOOD! Seriously makes me wish I had gone to school out in California. It would be worth it just to be in this group. So, here you go. Enjoy.

AMAZING, right? See, I knew you'd love it. That's why you are the coolest ever.

So, I apologize for the lack of postage lately. I owe you guys so much! First of all, I have a whole HUGE list of songs that need a rotation in the player (I'll get on that tomorrow) and I also talked about giving the site a facelift. Well, I still want to do that, but I don't know when I am going to have time. Things are...busy...right now.

OH! I was also gonna tell you what news I have. Well, first of all, I am no longer employed by First Baptist Church Dallas. It was decided that since I am not a music major any more, my internship would not be renewed for a second year. So, instead of having to worry about how to "fire" me, Grady asked that I resign. Last Thursday was my last day and I have to admit that it is nice to be free! I do miss it, I loved my job...but there are also aspects that are nice to be rid of.

Use your imagination. I am DEFINITELY gonna miss the choir, though! Goodbye, Chapel!!

Oh, by the way, I am not going to be a sponsor this year either...sorry if this is a surprise. Sometimes I don't always think my announcements all the way through.

And also by the way, anybody have a job they want to give me? :-) Just putting that out there.

This is a dumb post. I really just wanted to put that video up, and I decided I should write something too. Hee hee hee. Tomorrow is half-hearted packing day. We'll see how much I get done. Adios, all!!

The One with the Video

2007-08-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

Howdy, howdy, howdy. Oops, sorry. I was channeling Woody again. Sorry about the gap between posts, but I haven't been just sitting around! I have been working like MAD on the video from our recent trip to Branson. Well, it is finally finished and I gotta say....

I LOVE IT!!! I mean, if you watch it and love it, that's grand and all, but you know life is really about me, right?

Okay, fine. No more arrogance. Well, LESS arrogance. ;-) You should totally watch it!

And since I am bored, here's a little quiz for ya' too. Props to JESSICA for putting it up!

1. Do you like chinese food? Um, YEAH!!! Summer Palace, BABY!

2. How big is your bed? Twin XL...room for the feet.

3. Is your room clean? Hahahahahahaha. Not even a little bit. There is SO much stuff in here right now. BUUUUUTTT, I am moving next week and my next room is gonna be AWESOME!

4. Laptop or Desktop computer? Yes.

5. Favorite comedian? Ooooooo...toss up. Brian Regan or Ellen Degeneres.

6. Do you smoke? Only when I'm on fire.

7. Does anyone like you? Hahahaha. Not that I know of.

8. Whats the sexiest thing about Condoleeza Rice? Um.....I think her name is kinda cool.

10. Sleep with or without clothes on? My, my, aren't we getting personal? Clothed, of course.

11. Who sleeps with you every night? The Western Hemisphere.

13. How many times have you been pulled over by the police? Somewhere around 5, I think. None of which were my fault...

14. Pancakes or French Toast? MMMMMMMmmmmMMMMmmMMmmmmmm... PANCAKES! LOTS AND LOTS OF PANCAKES! Where da IHOP is? I NEED ME SOME IHOP?

15. Do you like coffee? Not particularly. Unless it's mixed with lots and lots of caramel.

16. How do you like your eggs? Over medium. I think. Is that a real way to cook eggs?

17. Do you believe in astrology? Well, of course!! Now, ask me if I think it works...

18. Last person you talked to on the phone? Hang on, let me check. Turns out, it's the ever wonderful SHERRI POPE! B.E.S.T.!

19. Last person on your missed call list? Hahaha. Sherri, actually.

20. What was the last text message you received? "New Top Chef at 9"

21. McDonalds or Burger King? Ooooo, Burger King! BEST FRIES EVER!

22. Number of pillows? Be more specific. On my bed? 2. In the world? 12 billion.

23. Last thing you ate? Hershey Kiss.

24. Last thing you bought? A Blueberry White Iced Tea from Starbucks this morning. Oops, actually, that's not true, it was a freebie. Um... probably lunch yesterday...but I don't remember what it was!

25. What are you hearing right now? Friends - 523, 524 - The One in Las Vegas (Parts 1,2)

27. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? The kind that's stays in the jar.

28. Can you play pool? Of course. It's what makes me classy.

29. Do you know how to swim? Yup. Running out of interesting questions, are we?

30. Favorite ice cream? Cookies and Cream.

31. Do you like maps? Yeah! I love figuring out where I'm going.

32. Tell me a random fact: RSVP stands for "Répondez s'il-vous-plaît" which is French for "Please respond."

35. What does your 5th text say? "I know i'm charming. Just couldn't tear yourself away."

36. Craziest place you've slept? Hahahahaha. This could be interesting. Denver International Airport? The theater of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

37. What is your favorite season? Winter. 'Cuz Imma cold hearted sonnofagun.

38. What is the first music video you ever saw? The Twisted Sister video in "Flight of the Navigator"

39. Are you wearing shoes? Nope.

40. Last person you called? Sherri. Bored now.

41. What is your favorite hangout? Starbucks.

42. A friends name? Julia.

43. How long have you known them? Hmmmmm...I don't know...18 years?

44. Last time you laughed at something stupid? Are you kidding me? I'm laughing right now.

45. What time did you wake up this morning? 9:00.

46. Wake up next to anyone? Do I look married to you? Or on tour?? :-D

47. Best thing about winter? The not being hot part.

48. Name a couple of favorite colors: Blue, Green.

49. How old are you? 24.

50. What month is your birthday in? December.

51. Do you think pirates are cool? They are if they are Johnny Depp!

52. Favorite Dave Matthews Band song (if you have one?) Ants Marching. Only one I know.

53. What are you doing this weekend? No idea! You wanna do something?

Okay, that's it! I ought to have a lot to write about tomorrow, so I'll see you then.

The One With the Branson Trip

2007-07-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

Weeeeellll, it's been quite a while, hasn't it? I told you that the summers are BORING!!

Only that's alie; life has been ANYTHING but boring lately! I'll have to bring you up to speed slowly so that you don't overdo yourself. No, really! Life is THAT interesting! :-)

I guess I'll just jump right in then. Jenn and I left last Thursday and made the 8 hour drive from Texas to Missouri (with her asleep in the passenger seat most of the time...drat that shoulder!). I know it sounds like a long time (and it was), but we really had a lot of fun. I just bought an iPod two days before, so we had a grand ole time listen to my ENTIRE music collection on the way up. What was that?

How many songs? WELL, thanks for asking! 5,164 at the moment, but I still have more than thirty albums to import that were my grandfathers.

Look how you got me off topic. Shame on you! I'm kidding, calm down. Nothing but love. ;-)

We had a pretty good drive up and got there in time to take off for the Stone Hill Winery. If you have never had the opportunity to tour a winery, SEEK ONE OUT! Coming from a strict Southern Baptist background, Jenn and I have not really gotten to see anything of the sort, so we had a blast.

And the wine tasting at the end wasn't bad either. :-)

The winery in Branson is actually a satelite facility and bottle only one of their numerous award winning wines in addition to cooking their Sherry. Is that how you spell Sherry? Cherry? No, that's cherry. Like on top of ice cream. Scherry? That looks fancy. Oh well. Who cares? The Sherry is cooked in huge aluminum tanks for a good long while. And by cooked, I mean COOKED! Each tank houses a second tank inside which actually holds the wine surrounded by scalding hot water. It's interesting to see the process behind producing a single bottle (and explains the pricetag). Who figured out the right way? Who sat there and said, "Why, yes. Four months IS the right time?"

I kind of want his job.

After cooking for a really long time, the wine is placed in barrells that age for something like 3 to 4 years!! Only then is it FINALLY ready to be bottled and sold.

Now, the best part of the evening comes after the tour...the wine tasting. They let us sample each of the wines and juices they sell while telling us about the making of each individual vintage. It's LOADS of fun! What is most interesting about the entire experience is the transformation that goes on amidst the members of the tour group. I'm telling you, by the time that sixth or seventh wine is being poured, people start talking and laughing. It becomes a fun atmosphere! Needless to say, the winery was a hit.

Once we were fully wine tasted, we headed back to our hotel, which happened (completely coincidentally, you understand ;-) to be located right next to our next event, the HAYGOODS! If you recall from March, the Haygoods' show has become something of a family favorite since I started talking with the oldest Haygood, Tim, and posting on their message board semi-regularly. Speaking of which!!! Haygooders, I KNOW you are reading this, so you had better leave me a few comments on THIS site! Anyway, we were excited to see the show because it is my absolute favorite and Jenn's in love with Shawn Haygood.

Ooooooops, did I write that out loud? :-) She gonna Keeel me.

Funny stories from that evening? Why, yes I DO have a couple. As we were walking between the hotel and the theater, we passed someone with shorter hair, pierced ears, wearing a red shirt and black jacket who happened to look suspiciously like Shawn (whether it was or not......well, let's just say that we are divided.). He gave us a small smile as he walked by and Jenn promptly called her best friend to scream, "I JUST PASSED SHAWN I JUST PASSED SHAWN!" Then she tripped over her own feet. Yup. It was classic. I wish I had a video.

So the show was phenomenal as expected. It went off without a hitch with the exception of intermission. Just before everyone take a 15 minute intermission, Timothy and Patrick Haygood (the two oldest) call out the anniversaries, birthdays, and groups in the audience. At the end of this little session, there was a pause and Tim looked out over the audience and said, "and I would also like you to meet the ultimate Haygood fan. That's right, he's here tonight, folks. Jeremy, where are you?"

He was met with awkward, dead silence. Now, since he knew I was coming and I do tend to take over the message board when I am on there, I FIGURED he meant me....but I couldn't be sure. And before I could say anything, he waved at the back of the room and said, "There you are, man! Good to see you."

Needless to say, Tim was very red after the show. :-) He felt bad enough that I got back to the hotel room to find that he had already posted on the message board so that I wouldn't be able to beat him to it. Hahahaha. I did get to spend some time after the show talking with Tim at the back of the theater and that was nice. We have been e-mailing back and forth periodically for a few months now, and it was fun to get to actually do the face-to-face thing. After a while, we were joined by his Tim's wife, Cassandre, who is a performer at Silver Dollar City. Nice surprise. All in all, pretty cool evening. I even got to take a picture with Catherine, the only girl in the family, since the message boarders are predominately female and Cat, therefore, receives very little attention. ;-) Of course, you know me...I am hardly one to let injustice run rampant through an online community. LONG LIVE QUEEN CATHERINE!!

Wow, why do you read these? I mean, seriously. That's the kind of thing that I write. I wouldn't even read my stuff. Oh well. Glad you're here. Let's move on to Day 2, shall we?

We started Friday morning by heading over to the acclaimed Silver Dollar City! If you are from Texas and have any recollection of how Six Flags was YEARS ago, then you have a pretty good image of SDC. The entire amusement park is set up like an old mining town, so we were bombarded by things like an authentic blacksmith and an extremely talented glass blower. Sidenote, I have ALWAYS wanted to learn how to blow glass! I think it looks like so much fun. I know what you're thinking, "You could totally do that, Jay/Jason/Jeremy! That's right up your alley!" And you're right, of course. I am all kinds of glass-talented. :-) The problem is that I think I would definitely have a problem with not touching the molten glass.

It's just so tempting. How could I resist? Oooooo, pretty. SO pretty!!!

Sorry, back on task. The atmosphere of the whole place was a lot of fun as even the employees were dressed in old-timey garb. The guys who ran the small food kiosks were my favorite! They were all old men who were so nice! In fact, everyone was extremely nice and it made the trip much more fun. At Six Flags parks, everything is manned by high school students and they DEFINITELY would rather be ANYWHERE else.

Unfortunately, Jenn wasn't feeling well, so we had to bail out a bit early. And because of the recent surgery on her shoulder, we didn't even get to ride any of the rides. Ah, well. C'est La Vive. I enjoyed it enough to know that I would like to go again sometime, if only to see Cassandre perform. Yes, this trip did quickly become the "Haygoods Tour" because they are EVERYWHERE! In fact, as soon as we got back to the hotel (three hours ahead of time), Jenn looked at me and said, "Don't the Haygoods have a show at 3 today?"

[Insert eye roll here]

"Jenn, we're not going to the Haygoods again, we are not that pathetic."

Turns out, we are. :-) We went to see the Haygoods again and this time I was honored to be introduced to the audience as the ULTIMATE HAYGOOD FAN, JASON! It was totally my 15 seconds of fame as I yelled, stood, waved to everyone, fake cried as Tim related the story of the previous night's concert, and generally felt wwwwaaayyyy famous. I had a number of people I had never met before strike up conversations after hearing Tim talk about my antics on the message board.

Now, I was not the only one who had a grand time...Jenn was bummed the night before because she did not get to meet her beloved Shawn since we were talking to Tim and Cassandre for so long. To her everlasting delight, when Tim showed some of their merchandise at intermission, this sentence flew from his lips---- > "Here ya' go, Jason; I'm gonna hook your sister up." And with that, Jenn found herself with a free Haygoods Hug Bear sitting in her lap. For those of you who are not in the know, a Hug bear means a guaranteed autograph and hug from each Haygood. She was mad psyched.Actually, when I called over to the box office at 2:15 for tickets to the 3:00 show, we were rewarded with second row seats. I know....

It's 'cuz we're famous. After sitting down (and watching feet move under the curtain for twenty minutes ;-), Jenn delighted herself by completely exhausting her battery camera taking pictures during the show. She even took a few with mine, so I thought I would post them here for your perusal.

Here is one of Jenn's MANY pictures of Shawn singing his heart out.

This is Tim's new and improved really cool "Fishin' in the Dark" hat. It's my favorite.

So there you go....Haygoods Show #2. Let's see, what's the running total thus far? Haygoods Show---Cassandre Haygood's Hangout---Haygoods Show. Yup. Pretty darn close to stalker material.

No, we didn't plan it that way, stop saying mean things like that. Why do you want to hurt me?

Pardon me while I cry a little bit.

Hahahaha. Okay, that was a lie too.

After Haygoods Stalking....umm, Show that is...#2, we took off for the Pierce Arrow Theater. Pierce Arrow was one of my absolutely favorite shows in March and this time was no different. The tight harmonies and great selection of songs make for quite an entertaining evening. Of course, the lovely Desta made the show all the more amazing! This time, in addition to two Carrie Underwood songs, she added "Big Yellow Taxi."

Yeah, I was completely sold. I mean, really. It was just like when SIX walked out to an amazing a capella rendition of U2's "Beautiful Day." Ah, shucks. I got ahead of myself again.

Pierce Arrow. Desta McAuliffe. Jarrett Daugherty. Kim Boyce. Amazing.

So, after Pierce Arrow, we took off for the next stage of coincidental Haygood Stalking...listening to the Jam Doctors at Waxy O'Shea's (Great little pub at the landing). The Jam Doctors are a GREAT group (in which Dominic Haygood happens to play Sax and sing a bit.), read very talented, but what made the show such a blast was the selection of music! We heard a little bit of everything and had a grand ole time jamming at the back of the pub. WOO HOO!!! Luckily, I don't think Dom recognized us....Because that would have put the current running total at Haygood Show---Cassandre's Hangout---Haygood Show---Dominic's alter-ego. :-)

And thus ends Day 2.

And thus begins Day 3. You didn't know what you were getting into when you started reading this post, did you?

We started out the day by..........SLEEPING IN! Yes, that's right. 'Cuz that's what you do on vacation! Next, we took off for the landing (because you would be surprised how little there is to see at midnight the night before) and spent a few hours wandering around (and downing some of THE best guacamole in the WORLD!). Afterwards, we went to see SIX...[insert previously stated U2 comment here]...because, SERIOUSLY! If you want to have my vote, just start your show with a U2 song. I am easily bribed. SIX is a group of (imagine this) six brothers who present an entirely a capella segment complete with vocal percussionists. It's so much fun!! You can believe me, because I ONLY see amazing shows. However, since I am now bored with writing, you may look at the post from March should you want to know more.

ANNNNNDDDDD.....Not a single Haygood ANYWHERE! See? Totally not stalking.

Of course, then we went to Magnificent Seven, where Stephanie Haygood is a performer. Drat. Streak back in full force. Mag 7 was a great show! Aside from the fact that the two producers of the show, Joe Tinoco and Tamra Holden, tend to showboat a little, it's a lot of fun. There are something like 174 costume changes throughout the show and they work their way through Seven Magnificent decades of music. Their song selections range from Broadway to old school country to latin. And not only is it a great show in an EXTREMELY nice theater, but THEY SERVE DINNER FIRST!

Um, yeah baby. Bring me the food.

For our final Branson shindig, we decided to do one more nighttime extravaganza. I really like that word, by the way. Extravaganza.

ExTRAvaGANza. Good word.

What was our running count thus far? Haygood Show---Cassandre's Hangout---Haygoods Show---Dominic's alter-ego

Well, you'll be happy to know that our last event had nothing to do with the Haygoods. Except that it does. But other than that, totally unrelated.

The guys and Cat have been working on a new reality television show, so they invited all available fans down to the theater (conveniently located next to our hotel, you'll recall) to help film a scene. Basically, we stood behind velvet ropes out front for a half hour, screamed, and waved pictures at the Haygoods as they got out of a limo. It was actually a LOT of fun! And I had the opportunity to meet a few other members of the message board, which is always a blast! The guys were great at working the crowd and signed autographs for everyone there even though it meant hanging out for far longer than they usually do.

Alright, so that's it! We got up the next morning and headed back to Texas. I realize that this update has been a little dry, but there is an AMAZING video coming soon that ought to make up for it. I'll keep you posted!

I want to leave you with one last picture taken somewhere in Arkansas. This sign greeted us as we walked out of a Quiznos after lunch. We like to think that it's the Haygood's way of saying that they'll always be with us. :-)

Haygoods Show---Cassandre's Hangout---Haygoods Show---Dominic's Alter-ego---Haygoods Taping---Haygoods Sign.

Sheesh. I swear that none of this was on purpose. I couldn't have planned it this way if I tried.

The One Before Tour

2007-06-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

You thought I forgot about you, didn't you?

DIDN'T YOU! Well, I am hurt. HURT! How could I ever forget about you, the faithful readers of my life?

So, the other day I was driving to work and the car in front of me refused to follow the posted speed limit or get out of the way! Well, I am not one to sit idly by and let some atrocities go unpunished! I served around as fast as I could, rammed my truck into that tiny little two door and pushed them off onto the shoulder! They got out of their car and shook their fists at me, but I was already halfway to Dallas. Sheesh. And people say you can't learn anything from Grand Theft Auto.

Hahahahaha. Okay, I'm kidding. Just in case you hadn't figured that out yet. Anyway. TOUR STARTS TOMORROW!!

Actually, I leave today. In like three hours. Have I gotten any sleep yet? Noooooooooo....Because that would be no fun! It's gonna be SO MUCH FUN! But here's the sitch...this year there are no tour e-mail addresses! I know, it's very sad. So here's what I want you to do. Go to the tour blog and leave comments about the posts! Let us know that you are following our progress and praying for us! Tell us how wonderful we are! :-) And we ARE good.

The other day, we sang the national anthem at a Desperados game and were FANTASTIC! It really was a hoot. Unfortunately, arena football was NOT. Have you ever heard of arena football? It's the dumbest thing on the planet. They put football players out there on a field half the size of a normal one with field goals through which a kindergartener could make an extra point EASILY! It's like football putt putt. Really. Plus they have an obnoxious announcer who serves absolutely no purpose. Okay, that's it. I just wanted to vent. And NOW....I am going to sleep!

Soooooo you won't see much of me for the next two weeks, but I am one of two bloggers on the tour site so I will be all over that! Pop over and say hello!

http://chapelincleveland.blogspot.com

http://chapelincleveland.blogspot.com

http://chapelincleveland.blogspot.com

The One About El Paso

2007-05-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody! What's going on? I am taking a quick break at work to tell you that I am headed out of town this very evening! At 8:05 PM, I will be sitting on an airplane waiting to fly to El Paso, Texas, to meet up with my mother and grandmother for the weekend. I should be back on Monday evening (hopefully with some pictures and stuff to show), so I will see you then!

I know how much my weekly music updates mean to your lives (Okay, I realize you don't care, but work with me here!), but June's are going to start next weekend....Ah, the joys of having five fridays in a month. :-)

Okay, that's it. Leave me LOTS OF MESSAGES while I'm gone, okay? Please? I'm beggin'! Don't prove that mean little Lauren in third grade right when she yelled out, "Jason has no friends!!"

;-)

One more for good measure... :-D

The One With....

2007-05-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Groovin'
Current Music: Maroon 5 It Won't Be Soon Before Long

What up, y'all? What. I'm from Texas, I am allowed to say y'all!!

And, just for the record, "y'all" is the CORRECT way to spell the word. "ya'll" is WRONG! In a contraction, the apostrophe takes the place of the removed letters. In this case, the "ou" in "you all" has been removed. You are now smarter than you were five minutes ago, congratulations!

So what's been going on? Things here are DELIGHTFULLY dull! Not dull, I am keeping busy with fun summer stuff, but nothing stressfull. WOO HOO!! I got all moved out of the nasty hole in Waco and the whole world seems just a little bit brighter now. I still haven't finished unpacking, but that's okay! I've decided that we don't give cardboard enough of an opportunity as a decorative element. I mean, seriously. That box over there? It looks good, I'm not gonna lie.

Well, maybe I lied a LITTLE. Anyway, preparations are in full swing for the tour coming up in less than a month! Haven't quite gotten the tour blog up and running yet, but hotels and flights are booked...and that's the worst part! Glad it's out of the way. Now we're down to the small details which are totally gonna take care of themselves. right? RIGHT?! :-) Anyway, I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Okay, that's it. Like I said, there just isn't a whole lot to write in the summer. So how about some more good music to tide you over? Check the P.P.S. Adios!

P.S. Yeah, sorry about that title. I couldn't think of anything! Sad, right? But the link is GOOD! In honor of Pirates 3 coming out, I give you this little creep-fest.

P.P.S.
Okay, so first, I KNOW that Dorkfish is not a song. But I am still waiting on the CD for one of this month's songs. Since it is still not here, I had to fill the gap with SOMETHING! So this little clip goes out to Rachelle. Enjoy!

Broken World - Older song, but I LOVE it! Gosh, I say that about all of my music.

Instrument of Peace - Same story, been around for quite some time, but still good!

The One With Sanjaya

2007-05-24T08:02:00.001-07:00

Alrighty, I'll make this quick and simple. I LOVE this guy! A video has recently appeared across the web that I thought you might like to see. This is Sanjaya saying that he is an art student named Bill Vendall saying that he has been playing Sanjaya for a school project. Right now, there is a bunch oh hooey about whether Sanjaya or Vendall is the actual being of existence, but I don't think it matters. Either way, it's a great prank and I wish I had thought of it. Hee hee hee. REAL POST TO COME, I promise!

clipped from www.youtube.com

The One With Joe Groban

2007-05-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

What's going on, ma peeps?? That's right, you're my PEEPS! Have you ever blown up peeps in the microwave? That's their only true purpose 'cuz they are NASTY to eat. :-) Hee hee hee. Sorry, Suzy.

So on Friday, I headed down to Spring, Tx to visit Miss Saylak's Kindergarten class. We have been sending letters and videos back and forth all year, which is SO MUCH FUN! It's a lot of fun to hear about them freaking out because of a science experiment I sent down. They are SOOOOO CUTE! Here is a picture of them:

You can't tell me that those aren't cute little faces. I had a lot of fun listening to them read their stories, and watching the Magic School Bus. Lately, Diana has managed to get her little posse obsessed with Josh Groban...like that's a surprise.

Diana's also got them obsessed with the Astros because she has a crush on one of them. Different story.

Anyway, they love to jam along with "Joe Groban" and they LOVE to show off for the camera. So here is a video of them singing my current FAVORITE Groban song. The best parts are when they don't know the words....

Hahahaha. CLASSIC!! Anyway, I am in the middle of moving, so this one is short and sweet. Catch ya' later!

P.P.S.
Celebrate Our Love - Yeah, BABY! We be kickin' it OLD SCHOOL for this one! Anybody remember Alice Deejay? Well, this is the album version of my favorite song from this album (Who Needs Guitars Anyway?). In particular, I love when the gospel choir sings at the end.

Eleanor Rigby - So, I know that I told you how much fun I had at the Haygoods' show over Spring Break, but these guys really are impressive! This is an instrumental cover of the old Beatles song and it's stellar. They can sing too, by the way. Maybe someday I'll actually put something up with some voices on it. ;-) They have a new album coming out, maybe then....

And finally, Switchfoot. Ahhhhh, Switchfoot. This song is all about the message. I love the image of us as shadows because God uses that to establish His glory. LISTEN TO IT, IT'S GOLDEN!!

The One on Mother's Day

2007-05-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Irritated
Current Music: Jason Mraz Tonight, Not Again: Jason Mraz Live at the Eagles Ballroom

So, how's your day going? Are you giving your mother a GREAT Mother's Day?

Did you go out to eat? 'Cuz I didn't. Did you give her a present with the rest of your family in a big present opening CELEBRATION!!!!!! 'Cuz I didn't.

Let me tell you about MY mother's Mother's Day. I woke up at 10:30 this morning because we were going to go out to lunch after churches were out (my parents go to different churches, so I have to use the plural), to hear that we were planning to meet at the restaraunt at 11:30...plenty of time since it's only 15 minutes away. However, when I got out of the shower and got dressed, the house was completely empty. Well, except for Bear. He stayed to keep me company.

It was only 11:00. They left 30 minutes early for a restaraunt 15 minutes away. What, were they afraid to miss the previews? Eye-rolling irritating, but nothing more. But it gets better.

On Friday, my mother and I switched cars so that she could use my truck to get flowers for the back yard. I got in last night and immediately left to see Spiderman 3, so we haven't switched keys back yet. Well, to get to the restaraunt, my sister and my mother used her spare key and took her car.

And they took my keys with them. So, I, of course, scoured the house to see if maybe she had left my keys on the counter somewhere to no avail. BUT, in the living room, I DID find the remains of bags and wrapping paper. Yup, my gifts don't count as REAL gifts to be included in the gift opening. So sad...

So.....I, being the incredibly mature individual that I am, unwrapped the two books I got for my mother and dumped them at her place at the dining room table. I also called and left a *nice* voicemail wishing everyone a Happy Mother's Day and to let me know if anybody wants a son sometime in the future.

Okay, I didn't really say that, but I thought it sounded good as I was typing it.

The worst part is, I am not even mad about it! I had to force myself to get mad when I left the voicemail. *sigh* I'm used to this kind of stuff. Oh well. I hope that your Mother's Day is SPECTACULAR!

Mine's about to get interesting, as soon as the "non-step" family checks their voicemail.....

The One With Tucker and Brad Again

2007-05-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: HappyHappy
Currently Watching: Supernatural

SCHOOL IS OVER

SCHOOL IS OVER

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hal LE LU JAH!!!

Alright, alright. Maybe I'm playing it up a little bit. But hey, this is MY blog! I can write whatever I want! Like if I want to write gibberish:

alsjdnlkjs ;lsjdf hrgh tlskju hd,ihn gu ghadu hgdf

I can. And you know what else? I am cool enough to pull it off!!

Wow, no idea why I am so arrogant today. Soooo...moving right along. Let's start things off with a video shall we? Mother's Day is tomorrow (there's your fair warning if you haven't purchased a gift yet....probably time to get crackin'.) and in honor of that blessed day, I present to you once again - Tucker and Brad

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yes, I KNOW it's the same video I put up last year! But there is just no beating it! I think this is my favorite YouTube video of all time and it happens to fall on Mother's Day. YEEEE HAAAAAWWW!!! Whoops, I seem to be channeling someone else at the moment....

Anyway, sorry about the looooooong week between posts! I know, I know. I am a bad blogger *slaps hand* I always get so excited when summer rolls around because I will finally have time to do the things I put off all year--one of which is blogging.

Then I remember that I have nothing to write about in the summer. :-) That will change soon enough, but right now? Nope, I got nada. NADA SURF! Whatever happened to Nada Surf? Where did they go? Back on task...

Oh hang on, Bear is hurling on the floor.

Ewwwwww, poor puppy. Anyway, back on task AGAIN!

So, what happened this week? This week was actually kinda not so great. For one thing, one of our dogs died yesterday morning, which is very sad. She was one of two that lived with my parents and I think that her companion is probably going to take it the hardest. Poor guy. Now he has a huge backyard to run around in and no one to run with him! It's sad!

Other than that, I am just slowly cleaing and packing up my house for the move. I think I am going to start moving things in shifts so that I don't have one day when we are trying to shove EVERYTHING into a moving truck in the middle of the Texas summer. Ug. And that's pretty much it!

I started reading a book called Heaven's Wager two days ago and it's getting to be really good! I had almost forgotten how much fun reading a good book is. Or how much fun reading a good book written after 1901 is...stupid lit courses. I can't wait to have everything all moved and cleaned up and to REALLY have time to do stuff. That mandolin is calling my name........Actually, it's been calling my name for so long that it finally wised up, bought a tape recorder, and uses that instead. You understand--gotta save that strength.

Okay, everyone have a great week! Hopefully, I will have more to say before next weekend, but we all know that's no guarantee. And podcasts will start back up soon, I promise! If you are a Chapel kid, you will DEFINITELY want to hear the next one. :-) I'll keep you posted...

P.P.S.
Mae - "We're So Far Away"--currently my FAVORITE SONG!! Truett turned me on to this group and I am quickly becoming a fan. This song is not like the majority of their stuff (which you'll hear next month), but it's SOOOOOOO good. I love the piano parts, particularly the run at the very end of the song. Enjoy!

"Everlasting God"--surely you've heard this song by now, but I love it! I love the message, I love the beat, and I LOVE the little kid at the end (who is Brewster's son, by the way)!!!!

"Rockin' the Suburbs"--okay, let me tell you about this. I really like a lot of Ben Folds' stuff. The problem is that he CANNOT CONTROL HIS MOUTH! I've loved this song since I first heard it forever ago, but I couldn't put it on the site 'cuz it contains lots of naughty words. Then along came "Over the Hedge." Folds re-worked the song for the soundtrack and I like it better! Plus it has William Shatner in the middle...and that's funny right thurrrr.

The One With the Blooper

2007-05-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Hopeful
Current Music: Architecture in Helsinki In Case We Die

So, what's been going on, everybody? I have to admit that I FORCED myself to wait until today to update the music player...I am that excited about all the music for this month. The first three songs are up now, but I will tell you more about them in the P.P.S.

Exams are well under way. Weeeeellll, I don't know about the WELL part. :-) Thus far, I have turned in my Technical Research Project for Technical and Professional Writing and it was okay. It wasn't the best I've ever seen, but that is the nature of group projects. Compromise means that it will not live up to the standards of any one person in the group. I also presented my research study entitled, Conversive Style: Reading as Speaking (Malinda, this is the one in which I use one of your posts...you ought to check it out!). The presentation went very well! The paper itself is still not quite ready for submission, but hopefully I'll get to it before the end of the summer.

What.

That's not lazy. Whatever, like you've never put anything off.

Now, I have a 1000 paper final to write for tomorrow, a ten pager for Monday, and two actual, honest-to-goodness final exams on Tuesday. *sigh* It's so close, but we're so far away.

Oops, that song goes up NEXT week! SO EXCITED! I am such a dork, I already have a bunch of songs that I want to add, but they will have to wait until June. JUNE!! I may have to revamp, I don't know if I can wait that long.

Okay, let's move on to something more entertaining, shall we? In January, if you'll recall, some weird weather floated through the country. Dallas froze. It was loads of fun and the morning that it happened, my dad and I were headed off to Starbucks, so I hopped out and filmed a little video post for you guys. Here it is...

Now, the video itself never made it onto the site (I don't remember why), but I am sure I have mentioned what happened that morning to some of you. I, of course, dropped into a bad British accent for a few sentences at the beginning and might have muddled up the words somewhere along the way...

Now, I can't imagine that my little flub will offend anyone, but I suppose that I should warn you that though I would NEVER conciously say anything remotely naughty on here....my slip-up was just that, remotely naughty. Here ya' go:

I know, I know. I am a bad person. Sorry!

Anyway, I always get to this point in a post and realize that I have lots more to say, but it's really getting kinda long. Grrrrr.... It's okay. My other thing is more serious and not only would it not fit with the current topic, I'm not sure I'm in the mood today. So, have a great weekend! Good luck to everyone taking finals, I'm praying for you!

P.S. Just DYING to know if this would actually work, you guys test it out and let me know. Not on me. Don't test it on me.

P.P.S. WOOT! for new music!

Daniel Kirkley is a new CCM artist and this song is GREAT! This was Diana's favorite song of all off of this month's preview CD; I think you'll like it too. Kirkley's voice is great because it sounds like it's got a little bit of training behind it and he creates vibrato by modulating his breath support, not the pitch, something you don't hear done well very often. RIGHT ON!

Did I just write "right on?"

This one goes out to Tiffany, who was asking for new artists. Well, I HAD to reccomend the Corrs, didn't I? This is one of their slower instrumental pieces that I love! It's got a great misty, foreboding tone to it. Enjoy! That is an order!

And finally, what's a playlist without a little of the Beach Boys in it? This song is not like most of their stuff that you've heard. It's got a little more rock in it than normal...that's what we're talkin' 'bout!

The One Where I Dialed 911

2007-04-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

Hey, guys!! Are you having a good week? If so, WOO HOO for you! If not...well, tomorrow starts a new one so see if you can't work a little harder in that department, hmmmMMMM?

I am just now getting back into the swing of online community stuff...so sorry about the sporadic updates! I am actually in a really good mood today for two reasons.

Really Cool Reason #1: I got all the music picked out for the music player next month and it all friggin' ROCKS!! Since I have major overhaul plans for the site this summer (be excited) I am trying to incorporate new features as early as I can. Less to do once school's out, you understand...

What. Like YOU'RE going to be doing anything this summer. Sheesh.

Oh. Oh really? You are? YOU HAVE TO WORK?! BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yes, I do too. That's not the point. ANYWAY! Moving along, once the new site is ready, we will be switching over to a flash based music player embedded in a separate frame at the top of the page so you can navigate anywhere you want to go without having to reset the player! YEE HAWWWWW!!! (That was for you, Tim.) With that in mind, I have to start planning ahead. So....I already have the 12 songs (yup, 12 now instead of boring old 10) chosen and on a preview CD that has been bringing me MUCHAS JAMMIN' for the past few days. It is also on it's way to Diana in Houston to get a second opinion.

Not that I'm worried, I have excellent taste in music. The first three songs should be uploaded next Friday, so be paying attention!

Super Cool Mega Awesome Reason #2:

I called 911 today.

I CALLED 911! (That's the police, international readers. :-)

As I was driving up to Dallas today, I happened to drive by an SUV that had pulled off the road on the other side of the highway. As I glanced over, I noticed that there was a young guy standing off in the grass in front of the car beating the TAR out of something lying at his feet!

You know how in movies you always see the villain standing over the good guy with one hand on his shoulder to hold him down while the other comes up as far past his ear as he can get it before he brings it down as hard as he can at the guy's face?

Well, that's what I saw. I'm not kidding. I was talking to Diana when I saw it and I was all like, "Um....I think...Diana, hold on...Oh my gosh...Wait, he can't be....out here in the open?...but it looked real....should I call the cops?...What in the..." And she was all, "Jay, call the police." And I was all like, "yeah okay."

Sorry, my inner valley girl comes out in stressful situations. You should see me when the president calls.

Anyway, so I called 911 and told them what I had seen adding that it could very well have been a stunt or for a video, but I couldn't tell. She asked if I was going to keep going and I agreed to turn around and drive back by. So that's what I did. I called Diana back because I was a little weirded out, caught the next exit, and drove back.

Well, OF COURSE there was no sign of the SUV anywhere. Then the next thought I had was, "Oh...my...gosh...now I have to look for...

A BODY???????!!!!!!" You've GOT to be kidding me.

Luckily I never found anything and the police never called me back, so I guess it was just a stunt, but still.....freaked me out.

Okay, that's it. I have some other more personal news to share, but Jenn is bugging me to come downstairs and watch Doctor Who with her, so I will bid you goodnight. GOODNIGHT!

P.S. WELCOME TO THE BOARDERS! If you are here from the message board, leave a comment somewhere and say hello! You do not have to register to comment, but please sign your name because the longstanding policy here at SHINE is that anonymous comments are deleted! DUN Dun dunnnnn...

The One With the Surveys

2007-04-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

I am bored. And yet I feel the need to post something. So how about a new survey? Sound like fun?

Well, too bad. I don't care what you think! This is MY blog! I can write whatever I want! :-)

And I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your kind words last week! It really helps to read messages from people who want to make me feel better. Thanks!!

Each Question requires 4 answers, answer truthfully!!

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE :
1. Customer Service Rep with the Red Cross
2. Staff Writer with the Woodstock Animal Foundation
3. Children's Choir Director at Grace Bible Church
4. Student Music Intern at First Dallas. WOO HOO!!

FOUR MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED OVER AND OVER
1. The Count of Monte Cristo
2. Under the Tuscan Sun
3. Love Actually
4. the Matrix

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
1. Dallas, Tx
2. College Station, Tx
3. Waco, Tx
4. Mesquite, Tx

FOUR TV SHOWS I LIKE TO WATCH:
1. I CAN ONLY PICK FOUR?! Fine. One Tree Hill
2. Doctor Who
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Ugly Betty

FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. Las Vegas
2. Branson
3. Crested Butte
4. New York

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Pineapple ANYTHING!
2. Sandwiches
3. Cheddar Cheese Straws
4. CHOCOLATE!

FOUR VEHICLES I HAVE HAD:
1. Red F-150
2. 1990 Cadillac Seville
3. Bicycle
4. Red porsche (three feet long)

FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. Branson
2. Oceanside
3. Disney World
4. Galveston

FOUR PEOPLE WHO WILL FILL THIS OUT:
1. Jenn
2. C. Emily
3. Suzy
4. Diana

Thanks to Alyssa for this survey!

Today Did You--------------------
1. Talk to a boy/girl you like ? Um, no actually. Talked to a girl that likes me though.
2. Learn anything new? Of course! I learn something new EVERY day! Today I learned that Dubliner cheese does indeed grow mold.
3. Talked to an ex? Yep. Diana. She said she'll never get over me. :-)
4. Miss someone? Nope. I don't really do that.

-Last Person Who-------------------------
5. Laid in your bed other than you? Um, NO ONE! That's weird! Oh....except that Truett did at my parents house when he was working on homework. I told you it's weird.
6. Made you cry? Blake Jennings
7. You went to the movies with? Good golly. I am sure that the answer is Diana, but I can't even remember what movie it was.
8. Went to the mall with you? I guess Tracy, Bill, Christian, Brianna, and Angel. But that was a LOOOONG time ago.
9. You showered with? Ew, PERV! No one but me!
10. Made you laugh? Haha. Good question. I guess Samantha. Gosh, that girl's a psycho.
11. Said they loved you? My mom.

-General stuff--------------------
12. Favorite location? OCEANSIDE!!!!
13. Tattoo? Uh, veto. Not in this lifetime. Or the next.
14. If you were stuck in an elevator, what would you do? Kiss whomever was in there with me. KIDDING! Kidding. I would probably sing.
15. Where do you want to get married? In a garden somewhere. Or in the old church in Kurten. I can't decide.
16. Are you random? Hahaha. Are cups bangled? YES!
17. Do you like being around people? Yes, in general. Although crowds stress me out.
18. Have you ever cried? No. Which is sad because my tears cure cancer. Waaaaaiiiit, that's Chuck Norris.
19. Are you lonely right now? Nope, I'm good.
20. Song stuck in your head? Endless Journey from Riverdance
21. Been on radio/TV? Um, yeah. :-)
22. Ever liked someone who treated you like crap? Yes! Jacqueline Jo Bozeman
23. what color shirt are you wearing right now? Blue. The answers always blue.
24. Name three things that you do every day. Check the message board compulsively, sing, read something
25. How much cash do you have on you right now? $100
26. Are you bored? Not anymore, got me a survey to do! A little tired though...
27. Who got you to join Myspace? I don't know...every kid in Chapel?

-26 SECRETS----------------------
1.WHAT IS YOUR DISPLAY NAME ABOUT? JasonHuntRocks...that should be self-evident.
2. WHERE WAS YOUR DEFAULT PICTURE TAKEN? Some random putt-putt place in Addison.
3. WHAT'S YOUR CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS? Single...but working on that...always.
4. HONESTLY, IF SOMEONE WERE TO TELL YOU HOW THEY FELT, WOULD YOU LISTEN? Of course!
5. WHATS YOUR CURRENT MOOD??? Sleepy!
6. WHATS YOUR MOST VALUED POSSESSION? My books.
7. HOW ARE THINGS IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP? This question is based on an assumption, which I find insulting. Therefore, I refuse to answer.
8. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, AND CHANGE SOMETHING WOULD YOU? No. I like who I am.
9. IF YOU MUST BE AN ANIMAL FOR ONE DAY- WHAT WOULD YOU BE? I would be a dolphin. I would love to just swim.
10. EVER HAD A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE? Define near. I am not dead, so I don't know...there have been a few times...
11. NAME SOMEONE WITH THE SAME B-DAY AS YOU? Ted Danson
12. HAVE YOU EVER SANG IN FRONT OF A LARGE AUDIENCE? Hahahaha. Define large. How does the whole of Reunion Arena sound? Impressed? Good. You should be. ;-)
13. WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITESEX? Eyes.
14. WHAT DO YOU USUALLY ORDER FROM STARBUCKS? Something different than what I ordered last time.
15. HAVE YOU EVER HAD A DRUNKEN WEEK? No.
16. DO YOU STILL WATCH KIDDY MOVIES OR TV SHOWS? Um....Hannah Montana, the Suite Life of Zach and Cody, Phil of the Future...the list goes on.
17. NAME SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED TO YOU TODAY. I finished a research study (FINALLY!)
18. DO YOU SPEAK ANY OTHER LANGUAGE? Not fluently, but I am working on it!
19. IS THERE SOMEONE ON YOUR MIND NOW? Yes.......
20. WHAT HURTS YOU AT THE MOMENT? Nothing!

The One With the Appology

2007-04-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

I owe you guys (gals) an apology. If you are friends with Jenn, then you probably already know this, but my grandfather was placed into ICU yesterday and passed away last night. I know that you come here hoping to read about what's going on in my life and that was something that I should have written about earlier. Honestly, I didn't really know what to say. It's awkward, you know? How do you write, "By the way, my grandfather was rushed to the hospital today."

Oh. I guess that's how. Anyway, I am sorry I left you out of the loop. I am probably going to be on something of a hiatus (though that is really a misnomer since it implies a vacation) from the blogosphere for a few days while we get everything taken care of so I wanted to bring you up to speed so you don't miss me. Well, you can miss me a little...

If you could keep my mother, grandmother, and the rest of our family in your prayers, I know we would appreciate it.

The One Where I NEED YOUR HELP!

2007-04-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

I need your help! I am conducting a research survey for a paper being submitted to the Stanford Undergraduate Research Journal and I need YOU to help me out! The survey is very easy (there are no wrong answers) and should not take more than ten minutes. If you are able, please right click on this link----> SURVEY <---- and click "Save Target As..." After you have downloaded the survey, all you need to do is open it, complete it, and follow the instructions inside to send it back.

I realize that you are busy people, but I could really use your help! There are no age limitations on the survey, so there is nothing holding you back! Thank you in advance!

The One With the Big Paper

2007-04-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

I promised this to you a long time ago, but...well...there were some issues. But now 'sall good. So here you go!

Here is the first of my three papers this semester. It's long, but I hope at least MARGINALLY interesting. If you are up for the challenge, I would LOVE to get your feedback on it! You are allowed to hate it, as long as you can give me a good reason. :-)

Spinning in the Grave: Why Benjamin Franklin Would Hate America

The One Where God Speaks

2007-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

I should REEEEEEEAAAAALLLLLLYYYYY be asleep right now.

But I'm not, of course. Because that would be the opposite of fun.

I wanted to tell you a little story.

So, you know that my life has been a little different since Spring Break. At least, you do if you pay ANY attention to what I write on here. There have been some drastic changes in my relationship with God and in my understanding of his purpose for my life.

My goodness, that sounds Stained-Glass-Windowy, doesn't it? "Come when you can, leave when you must."

Anyway, this week has been fraught with communication difficulties. Not with the telephone, but between me and God. I have had trouble being consistent in prayer and in the time that I spend focusing on Him. Sooo, all day Wednesday, I prayed that God would bring me back to the place where I was a few weeks ago - when ever part of the day was filled with this weird joy...oh, it's difficult to describe. Since getting back to Texas, I haven't been able to get the excitement of what God has planned for me out of my head. I'm talking every minute of every day. It's much fun until I realize that I have zoned through an entire lecture on Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Well, this week has seen no lack of that excitement, but it's been harder to fight off the doubts and frustrations that pop into my head. That verse that always pops up, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart," just hasn't been as quick to jump forward.

Tuesday night, that changed. I was messing around on the internet when I came across a site featuring a family that lives in Branson, Missouri. On the page detailing their somewhat sensational marriage, I ran across this...

Weeeeelllll, that kinda grabbed my attention. In the past few weeks it has actually been chilling to see God working so overtly. Wait, coincidence, you stay? Maybe...but there's more. After I continued reading the page, I found this note at the very bottom.

I don't believe in coincidences.

P.S. And I added a new podcast today.

The Second One With Only a P.P.S.

2007-04-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

As promised, there is new music for your perusal in the Music Player. Enjoy!!

P.P.S. - "Something Beautiful" Um......FAVORITE SONG EVER! At least right now. This song has such an awesome dance beat (not that I would dance around my room or when driving down the road). And the lyrics are soooooooo sweet. "It's the voice that whispers my name / It's a kiss without any shame" Come on! That's good stuff!

"The Face of Love" Again, LOVE this song! It's been one of my favorites for a long time, but for some reason I never put it up. It also carries an incredibly sweet message about Christ being the Face of Love. A-MAZ-ING.

And finally, are you ready for this? This is big. This is SHINE history right here, and you are here for the big moment. For the first time ever, THERE IS A COUNTRY SONG IN THE MUSIC PLAYER! "Last Dollar (Fly Away)" is just a bunch of fun. I especially love the little kids at the end. Tell me what you think!

The One With the Solo

2007-04-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

So.....can you guess what I did this weekend? :-) I wish I could write smilies in all caps so that I could make them look all excited and stuff.

Stop laughing at me.

We're not friends anymore.

Okay, but ONLY because you said you're sorry.

Anyway, I went to Kurten this weekend to sing with the Zion Choir and had a blast! Perfect Easterness. Here is the video of my solo...I hope you like it (but if you don't, lie to me)! It's pretty good for rehearsing for the first time the day before, right? SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT IT! Please!!

This part was going to contain a link to the paper I just finished for one of my classes, but my stupid, hateful, arrogant, obnoxious computer that hates me is no longer recognizing USB devices. Worthless.

Worthless
Worthless
Worthless.

Did I tell you that I am getting a new computer?

Here is a picture of it

Ain't it puuuuurdy? And yes, it's a mac. I am so tired of dealing with Windows' junk. Hooray for stable operating systems!! [Insert angelic choir here]. Anyway.........

I have other things to tell you, but I have to head up to Ovilla to work on a project with Truett and hopefully hang out with SARA! SARA, CHECK YOUR MESSAGES!!

Part 2 coming up later! OH! And new music about which I am particularly excited! You know what, I'll do that now before I leave. Just for you.

The One With TiSP

2007-04-01T00:47:00.000-07:00

A real post is coming soon, I promise. TOO MUCH WORK!!!!!!

In the meantime, I wanted to point out Google's continuing newness. They are no offering free broadband internet (Google TiSP). The offer is limited, so I wanted to bring it to the attention of my faithful readers. You've earned it!! Go to www.google.com and there should be a link below the search field. Just click on it and you should be well on you way!

I also added 2 new podcasts, FYI.

Adios!

The One With the Covetting

2007-03-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

No, no, no. Not the BAD kind of covetting. Is that even spelled correctly? I am so tired that I don't even care, how sad is that? ME not caring about spelling. Ug. For the next 24 hours or so, I would definitely covet your prayers because I have one of THE tests tomorrow. I did pretty badly on the first one, so this one needs to be MUCH better. I studied tonight, and I have more to do in the morning, but right now I am going to bed. I IS SLEEPY!!!

And sick.

Gross. I hate being sick. It's just a cold, and it is hardly incapacitating (how's that for a big word even though I am sick), but frustrating nonetheless. It makes it very difficult to concentrate. Anyway, wish me luck! See you all later!

P.S. This was a BORING post, wasn't it? Sorry! Maybe this will make up for it....a funny video.

The One for Tim

2007-03-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

I also wanted to say hello to Tim Haygood! You can hear him in the music player, in case you haven't been paying attention for the last two days. Tim stopped by the blog this week and sent me an e-mail, so Howdy, Tim! I is glad you came by.

The One With the Insanity

2007-03-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Confused
Currently Watching:

Okay, I AM GOING NUTS HERE! Have you subscribed to the podcast yet? You should, it's a little easier to be honest when I don't get to proofread. Up and down. Up and down. This whole Branson bit is making me absolutely bonkers. I can think of nothing else. I am already planning ways to sneak up their some weekend. I don't know what I would do. It's just that I have never felt this strongly drawn to anything before in my life. Every minute of the day is fraught with me wanting to not be here.

Did I tell you that I didn't go to school yesterday? Well, remember how I told you in the podcast that I was worried about how I would go back to worthless classes (I know they're not really worthless. Work with me here.)? Turns out...I can't. I just couldn't make myself do it. I pictured me in all of these classrooms and I saw my depression growing with each passing period.

Eeks, that was a little more dramatic than I meant. Actually, this has been a remarkably good experience. God has been consistently showing me things in EXTREMELY overt ways. Does that sound cheesy? Okay, maybe it is, but it's true. He has been consistently reinforcing me in that "wow, this song came on the radio at exactly the right moment" way. Bible verses, devotionals...It's actually kind of eerie to have God speaking so clearly. Every time doubts start to creep in, the verse from Psalms pops into my head that says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Um....can you say most amazing promise ever?! This IS going to happen, and God is guiding me towards it.

Okeeday, all done typing. Must sleep now.

The One From Branson

2007-03-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really FROM Branson, because I am already back home, but it's about Branson.

Did I tell you that I was going to Branson? Maybe not.

*****Enters Time Machine*****

Date: 10 March 2007

Tomorrow I am going to Branson!!!!

*****Exits Time Machine*****

There we go, all better.

Gosh that was stupid. Don't read that part.

Anyway, I went to Branson and it was definitely interesting. I have to admit that I was a little worried before I left, but things turned out very different than I anticipated. A lot of things have changed in the past week and it's difficult to figure out exactly where to start. I guess let's just go for the gusto!

In the next few months, a bunch of stuff is going to change here at SHINE. For one thing, the main site is going to get a complete overhaul (including a new intro movie...sheesh that one's embarrassing). In fact, I will probably take it offline in the next week until the update is finished. There are also going to be a number of changes here at the Blog - the least of which is a new template. With any luck, the design will be smoother and easier to use. I also intend to swith over to a Flash Music Player instead of the embedded WMP one we use now.

But here comes the real meat of the matter. This blog has not been very honest. Not that I have been writing a bunch of lies for the past however many years, but I censor a LOT of the stuff that appears here for various reasons and for various people. This week I realized that I don't want to do that anymore. I have kept a journal since I was very young and in it I would write as truthfully as I could while on the Blog, I wrote what I figured people wanted to read. That eventually got pretty boring so a few weeks ago, I started a podcast. I know, right? Sorry I didn't say anything earlier. If you would like to subscribe, open iTunes, go to the iTunes Store and search for my name. The podcasts will be able to shed more light on the big ramifications of my trip to Branson. But keep in mind that NOTHING is censored on the podcasts. Listen at your own risk.

Now, that being said, let's move on to the fun part! Here's the re-cap of Branson.

Day 1: Arrive in Branson. Freak out a little because it is nothing like expected. Have dinner. Check in to flippin' sweet lodge. Unpack.

Day 2: Meet up with parents for lunch and exploring. Pick up tickets to Pierce Arrow Theater. Have dinner. Go to Pierce Arrow concert. Let me just tell you a little about Pierce Arrow. They were so good that we were worried we might have jinxed the rest of the week so we bought tickets to their second show on the last day we were in Branson. The harmonies were AMAZING! They had a great time performing and it was a lot of fun to watch. They also had a singer named Desta from Altus, OK who performed a couple of country songs and was exceptional (not to mention quite a looker....oops, did I write that out loud?). The group is composed of six members (only five of whom sang on this night...don't know why. Only four sang the last night.), a comedian who was pretty darn funny, and Kim Boyce, a former Miss USA contestant. If you go to Branson, SEE THIS SHOW!!!

Day 3: Was interesting...We started out the day on the Branson Scenic Railway, on which I recorded this Video Post...

Unfortunately, this little trip was not the most interesting of trips. I got bored. So I recorded a few more videos...

Then, I just decided to turn the camera on and record whatever popped out of my mouth...

Hee hee hee...So that was the Branson Scenic Railway. Not my favorite. But AFTER that, we stopped by the Stone Hill Winery and took a tour, complete with wine tasting!

These casks are something like 100 years old and hold 43 million gallons of wine.

Or something like that; I wasn't really paying attention. :-) It was really interesting to get to see the wine-making process and our guide was pretty funny.
In the same room with the uber casks were these:

Each of these casks will sit in this room for 3.5 years before the wine they hold is bottled and sold. Ain't that cool?

One more picture. This is me and my dad.

Some of the wine was really good! Some of it was not... But we had fun nonetheless. Here is my mom. She is going to freak out when she sees this post. You wait and see...

After visiting the winery, we grabbed dinner and headed off for the Music City Centre for the Haygoods show. Which, by the way, was AMAZING! The Haygoods are a family (7 brothers and 1 sister ranging in age from 29 to 14) who have been performing together for over 15 years. These guys were very impressive! Vocally, they were not the best, but their show was my favorite by FAR! They wrote and produced the entire thing themselves and their energy is addictive! Again, GO SEE THIS SHOW!

Day 4: This evening we went to see a show by SIX, a group of brothers (family acts are a big thing in Branson) that was very good! They opened with Beautiful Day by U2 and I was hooked. Really that's all it takes. You play the right song and I am yours, baby! They also had an entire section of Beach Boys songs...Um, HELLO!!!!! I wish I was a Beach Boy.

That day, we also went to the Butterfly Palace. It is a very cool building architecturally and inside is an entire Rainforest room containing thousands of butterflies. Here are a few of them.

Okay, yes the butterflies are all pretty and stuff. However, the best part of the whole thing is the MIRROR MAZE! Woo Hoo!
It was so much fun! Here is a picture of the rainforest maze. It's a little unclear, so I took two. One with a flash and one without.

In addition, I recorded this little video. Again, it's hard to make out, but it cracks me up!

Day 5: On Day 5, we chilled a bit, then we went to see Pierce Arrow again. And again, they were amazing! *sigh* I want to be in Pierce Arrow.

Anyway, almost each day we stopped by a place called Branson Landing. It is the very nice little area with a hotel, some lofts and a new outdoor mall. It reminded me of home and I really enjoyed hanging out there. One of the COOLEST things was a plaza that played music 24/7 and had a fountain/flame tower show every hour. It was WAAAAAAAYYYYY cool...Here's a picture.
And I am going to include this picture as well because I think it's really good! A new show is coming to Branson next year and to advertise, they erected a huge statue of Noah's Ark. It's cool, so I decided to take a picture of the white tigers on the front. Now, I want you to appreciate the effort this took. The top of the Ark was HIGH up in the sky. It took me something like six tries before I got a decent photo. So...APPRECIATE!!

One day, there were even a couple of kids outside playing on a bunch of buckets. They were good! I was impressed!

And that, ladies and gentlemen is Branson in a nutshell. I hope that you have enjoyed this little update and we'll see you next time!

P.P.S. I came back from Branson with some KILLER new music and you know that I HAVE to share it with you, right? Now I have always figured that this was understood, but someone asked me last week, so I figure I should clarify. All of the music in the player on my page has been purchased by me, most exclusively for the page. Not that I think any of you would, but please do not try and pull the music from the page. Now, on to the good stuff.

Canon in D - This is one of the songs from the show we saw on Wednesday night. The Haygoods arranged this version themselves and it is KICKIN'! Four of the siblings are on violin, one on electric guitar, one on bass guitar, one on piano, and one on drums. It ROCKS!

Baby, It's Fact - Yes, this breaks my own rule. There are now two songs by Hellogoodbye in the player. But since getting this album, it has quickly become one of my favorites! Listen! I think you'll like it!

Bogoroditse Devo - This is it, folks. This is THE song. This is the one that started the waterworks at my last concert with the Concert Choir. The dean of the music school said that it alone was worth the price of the ticket. Yes, it's that good. It is my favorite choral piece ever. You should definitely turn the speakers up when you listen.

Miss Blue - Okay, Filter is not that great of a band. They really only have two good songs. The first is Take a Picture. The second is Miss Blue. Tell me what you think.

Take It Easy - This is one of the groups that we saw in Branson and they single-handedly changed my mind about country music. I know, Truett, I know. Shut up. Anyway, great cover.

P.P.P.S. Okay, do you realize that it's been two years since I recorded the audition songs on the right? Scary. Gonna have to record something new.

The One With the Pitching

2007-03-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hey, everybody! Just a quick note to tell you that no, I have not been abducted by aliens or anything like tht.

Well, not this week anyway. :-)

I am just INSANELY busy! Seriously, any free time I have to steal from school by ditching.

Wait, did I write that out loud? No, not ditching, I would NEVER ditch. I meant....um.....PITCHING! Yeah, that's it. Pitching. I steal time by pitching.

I don't know what that means. Anyway, I am working on something exciting and new for you to enjoy since AudBlog went offline last year. I'll tell you more in the near future! Have a good day!

P.S. Okay, leave it to Disney to concoct the newest high-tech innovations and use them to entertain kids. I LOVE THAT COMPANY! Anyway, these two are inside Dineyland's California Adventure where they scoot around saying silly little things. The best part is that they are remotely controlled from 35 MILES AWAY! Now, the tech ain't perfect yet (in fact, you can tell when they lose their connection and resort to a fail-safe backup program), but the possibilities are intriguing!

The One With Mr. Body

2007-02-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone! Hoo WEEEEE, are you as psycho crazy busy as I am? Man alive, apparently the entirety of Baylor University got together and had a large conference this week. It went something like this:

Unnamed Regent #1:"How are things with the Hunt boy?"
Representative of all professors:"Well, he seems to be getting along just fine. Writing many good things. Drawing interest for internships and literary submissions."
UR1: "Really? That's great! So that means..."
Rep: "Exactly. It's time to give him everything we can on the same day."
Everyone in the room giggles and dances for joy.

*long exasperated sigh*

So, I have a midterm spread across Monday and Wednesday. It should be LOADS of fun. And yes, that was sarcasm, for those of you not really paying attention. I also have to revise my Description Project (drastically, it turns out. It seems I am not very good at describing things.), revise my Literacy Narrative (although this one was better than the Description Project, she wrote nice things about it.), contact a screenwriter about my Career Profile Project, design and distribute a survey for my semester research project (want to help, by the way? Drop me an e-mail.), and find time to launch my plan for global domination.

I know that sounds formidable, but it's okay. I have a really good plan. Just call me Brain.

I wanted to show you something I found last week that was kind of interesting. I walked into Class #2 last week and noticed a notebook and folded piece of paper sitting on the overhead projector. The notebook was immensely boring, but the paper was not. Here is what it said.

"I, Mr. Peacock, am keen on my wife as the murderer of Mr. Body. Besides the fact that I know her, and I have seen her secret lair behind her show rack in the closet that contains blueprints of Mr. Body's home and office, chemicals, several different high powered rifles, grenades, and a diagram of the human body, I have evidence from that night to prove she is the criminal. Once a month I carry around a tape recorder just in case she does something drastic. This happens to be that time of the month.

*CLICK* 'Honey Im going to go downstairs to kill Mr. Bo... I mean grab something to drink. Would you like a bloody Bo... I mean a bloody Mary?' *CLICK*

Case Proven. She is guilty of the crime."

Oh, but that's not all. The sheet continues in a different handwriting.

"It has been a cross for me to carry having married a man who had no love for me. Actually, my husband hates me. I've become his punching bag and a stress reliever to him. Last week, after beating me to the point where I couldn't stand, I realized something had to be done. So I told him the next time he puts his hand of me, will be his last day. The only person I have been wanting to kill is my husband, not poor old Mr. Body. The law can't condemn me for thinking of murder. All the things he supposedly saw in my closet are not mine. This is the only way for him to get rid of me. Why, he is just a coward. And if I did it would only be because my husband had beaten me and something went wrong with my brain. I think I'm insane. Who wouldn't be. Getting beaten by Mike Tyson each day. Can I please have a lawyer."

Yes, that's what we do at Baylor. We write confessions from Clue.

Badly.

Anyway, though you might like that. Hee hee hee. And now, back to the grind. GOODNIGHT!!

P.S. Uber cool. I love that you can actually see the compression wave.

P.P.S. "Swans" - Yup, chock another one up to Grey's Anatomy. I'm telling you, this show spits out some GREAT music! This song is so sad and I love that. Sometimes it's good to be sad. The last 32 seconds when the strings really kick up are AWESOME!

Hellogoodbye - Okay, I caved. I don't normally mirror mainstream radio, but I couldn't help it. I LOVE THIS SONG! It's the one I was dancing to in my car in that video post. Does anyone else remember when Hellogoodbye was on the Real World a few years ago? I thought they were great then, but I never expected to hear anything from the group again. Imagine my surprise! I love being wrong!

The One With the Cutest Baby

2007-02-13T10:05:00.000-08:00

LOOK AT THIS BABY!!!!!!

Isn't he adorable? This is Lydia's (who works up here at the music office) new son Drew. If you are the kind of person who likes baby, go flip through the pictures on her BLOG. And if you are not the kind of person who likes babies....I am not sure we can be friends any longer.

Just Kidding.

Mostly.

:-)

The One with American Idol AGAIN

2007-02-06T19:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, this one will be short, sweet, and to the point. Remember what I was saying about the locked doors?

Well, tonight American Idol did an entire segment on the idiots who run into the locked door. If you haven't seen it yet....DO SO! I will do everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, in my power to find it and put it online as soon as I can.

But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that we get to the very end of the show...I'm talking the last ten seconds...when this pops across the screen.

That, my friends is one Jonathan Pilgrim, a student at Baylor University (and a member of my former choir) showing the world his golden ticket.

That's right, SOMEONE FROM BAYLOR IS GOING TO HOLLYWOOD! Woo hoo! I know, I know. It's dorky to be excited about American Idol, but I've never actually personally known anyone who got on.

What. Have you?

Anyway, I am very excited to see how he does in Hollywood next week and in celebration, I have added a new song to jukebox. If you scroll through the songs, you should see "Shalom Rav" by the Baylor University Concert Choir (due to a glitch in the code, you may have to hit the play button twice for it to start). The male soloist in this absolutely BEAUTIFUL song is none other than Jonathan Pilgrim. So, give him and see what you think a full WEEK before the rest of the world!

VIDEO POST!

2007-02-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

Thou canst never accuse me of taking myself too seriously.

The One With American Idol

2007-01-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

Current Mood: Bored
Currently Watching:

You know, I managed to let five years fly by without ever feeling the need to be consumed by that which is, I feel, solely responsible for the downfall of our civilization.

Fine, maybe I am overstating my case a bit, but you get the drift, right? Anyway, this season I am thoroughly enjoying myself with the audition process. Have you ever sat and found yourself critiquing right along with Simon Cowell? Um....'Cuz I do! I would do just about ANYTHING to be a guest judge on this show. I may not like the premise of the show, but I do love to see how many amazing singers there are in our great country! Some of these kids impress me in new ways each week.

Of course, the good kids are not even HALF as much fun as the bad. I love hearing them tell the judges, "But my friends always tell me how good I am."

Honey, FIND SOME NEW FRIENDS! But even with the fun of watching numerous morons humiliate themselves on national television, there is still more - it's not even the best part?

Do you know what the best part is? This best part is that in the audition room...

They
lock
one
of
the
doors.

See.....the judges always seem to find themselves in a room with double doors and for reasons unknown to the rest of the world, the left door is ALWAYS locked. In fact, you would think these moronic "singers" could figure that out, but nope. I thin I've heard Simon say, "Other door," more than I have heard Randy say, "It's a little pitchy." Anyway, thankfully, I have the answer to the burning closed door question. They lock the door for comedic effect. Let me show you what I mean.

Simon: "I'm sorry, Love. It's a no."
Girl: "Please, I've worked harder than ANYONE else. I've worked harder than I ever thought I could! What can I do to be better?"
Simon: "It's just not quite right."
Girl: Gathers her strength, lifts her head and says, "I think you are going to regret this." Then she slowly turns toward the exit, and calmly walks to the doors.

And it won't open. After a few tries, she manages to open the correct door and leave, but it's too late. Her triumphant egress is ruined and she must walk out with her head hanging. SO sad.

Actually, the best ones are those who win. One guy screamed, jumped up, and raced away from the judges. Then *BAM!*

Hee hee hee. I love it. Anyway, just thought I'd share. Now I must go finish a project for tomorrow. Adios!

The One Where it's FREEZING!!!

2007-01-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

Um, IT'S SO COLD!!! Seriously, Ashton finally stopped talking today because his lips froze over. It's been nice to have things so quiet. Oh, please. You're starting to feel all sorry for Ashton again, aren't you?

I take good care of him. I bought him a new sweater this year for Christmas. I even trimmed it so it wouldn't drag in the ground, then I donated the excess to a small kitten that was cold.

Seriously, it is SO COLD! I recorded a video to post yesterday, but I am having problems processing it for YouTube. I know, you are very sad. Life will continue. I don't really have much to say, I just wanted to gripe because my car door was frozen shut today. Have a nice day, all.

The One With SCHOOL!

2007-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

Current Mood: Happy
Currently Watching:

Hello, everyone! My, my, my....what is going on?! Let me tell you what is going on with me, okeeday?

SCHOOL HAS STARTED!!! In case you missed that, SCHOOL HAS STARTED! And I am actually happy about it. Mostly. I have to admit that it is very hard to walk past the music school and think about my old friends flunking musicanship without me...But it's okay.

Funny story. On the first day, I parked on the street behind the music school because I didn't haven't have a parking sticker yet. Anyway, I had to walk right past the building and I was a little sad. And then I heard cheering....All of my friends were hanging out of the second floor windows with signs cheering for me!

It was amazing! I felt like I was walking down the red carpet!

Okay, so maybe I made that up. But I had you going there for a minute, didn't I? Hee hee hee. Actually, here is the primary reason I am marginally unhappy with school...

Why yes, yes those ARE all of my textbooks. No, that's not true. I still have three more on order. INSANE!!! One of the books is a comic book anthology. Really, now. REALLY! Comics? This is why I pay the big bucks, to read the Sunday comics.

Maybe I am being a little cynical. Maybe. The class looks interesting, I suppose. One of my classes is professored by this absolutely nutty woman who spent the first day telling us how she married the best man on the planet at the ripe old age of 53. It was cute. At least she kept things interesting. I think she's on something. Unfortunately, I do sit behind tight t-shirt, saggy jeans, no underwear boy. Well, that's his full name. He prefers to go by Butt-crack Billy.

Was that too much information? Sorry. :-)

OH!!!! I forgot to tell you my sad news. In fact, I don't think I can even describe it. I just have to show you the picture.

Are you sad? You SHOULD be sad! I'm sad!!! I don't know what's wrong with it yet. My poor car.

Okay, I have to get ready to go to work now. Today, we are PAINTING! WOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!

Talk to you later!

P.S. Um.....cutest video in the entire world!!!! Watch it over and over again.

P.P.S. So today is the NEW ARTIST PARADE!! We'll start at the bottom and work our way up.

"Just a Little Girl" by Stephen Speaks - Okay, Stephen Speaks is far from a new group, but for some reason, the world refuses to let them into the light. Have you ever run across a group that has lived in the background for YEARS and is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING?? Maybe that's overselling a bit. Anyway, I have been a Stephen Speaks fan for three or four years now and you should definitely check them out if you haven't yet. This is a great song. Then go download "Out of My League" one you are finished.

"I Won't Let Go of That Promise" by Michael B Allen - Bit of interestingness...I am jogging through iTunes today looking for new music and I run across this new artist...Michael Allen...and I think to myself, "Gosh, he sounds familiar." Turns out, it's one of my choir kids who graduated last year! So, of course, I have a listen and I find that he is acutally not bad. Has a way to go yet, but there is definitely potential there. Please listen to this song and them comment back your honest opinion. I would love to be able to send him a message telling him what my friends thought (unless we all hate it, in which case I will pretend like it didn't happen). Vocally, he needs a little work, but I think the songwriting is sound. The song REALLY picks up around 3:50. Check it out!! Oh, sidenote. Another one of my choir kids has started playing with Played by the Hour (now called Manodestra) in the past month. They are poppin' up all over the place!

"Hit Me Up" by Gia Farrell - This song is from Happy Feet and has a very addictive beat! Gia is only 17 years old and this is her first release. Actually, it hasn't even been released yet, I pulled it from the soundtrack. Check it out and tell me what you think!

The One With the Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T18:23:00.000-08:00

Ho, Ho, Ho, everyone! I hope that you all had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wow, it's such a relief to be sitting here typing a post out there to all of you. I tell you, I get very frustrated when I don't have time to post. At least two or three times a day, soemthing pops up (a funny story, a rude barrista at Starbucks, neighborhood dogs using Ashton Kutcher's head as a chew toy *WHOA! PREVIOUS POST FLASHBACK!*) that I think, "Oh! I have GOT to write about this on the blog.

Alas, I never have the time to follow through! And to make things worse, AudBlog shut down a few months ago! HOW SAD! OH THE PAIN! The ETERNAL anguish!

For you, I mean. Not being able to hear my wonderful voice whenever you feel like it. We'll see how long the ones I have already recorded stay on the server.

Anyway, how do I get so off-track so easily? I was wishing you a very Merry Christmas! And in honor of that (and because I uploaded them last week, but never got to put them in the player), I added four new songs to the music player today! Yes, I realize it will be after Christmas when you ge to hear them.

What's your point?

Included is this year's "Jay's Favorite Christmas Song" selection, "The Song of Christmas" by NewSong. It's is TERRIFIC! SOOOOO gonna have to find a place to sing that some day. I also put on "The Bells of Christmas" which is one of my ALL TIME favorites! And 20 cool points goes to the person who can correctly name the movie it came from (preposition at the end of the sentence. Don't care.) NO CHEATING!

Anyway again, I am looking forward to some fun time before school starts again! In two weeks, I start my last year of school EVER!! WOO HOO!!!!! All of my classes are in one building, which will be nice. AND it's my favorite building. It's a stone building with a completely hardwood interior. In the middle of the foyer there are spiralling staircases that go all the way up to the top of the fourth story. I totally feel like Harry Potter when I am sitting in there.

That's not what I was talking about. Okay, can you tell that the television is on in the background? This is much more sporadic than normal, I know. I am SO going to read a book a day! Well, maybe a book every few days.

Oh, this is the stupidest post ever, I am going to let it go. MERRY CHRISTMAS again! To the top of the roof, to the top of the wall, now DASH away DASH AWAY, DASH AWAY ALL!

The One With the Begging

2006-12-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hey, guys! Things have been crazy busy, as I am sure you can surmise, but they should slow down considerable today (can you imagine?) I promise that I have a real post, full of witty one-liners, entertaining stories from the office, and ideas for ways to convince people that 100 million dollars a year to play a sport is stupid. Really, it's coming!

But right now (since I am at work and have to pretend that this is work related ;-), I DESPERATELY need your help!! If you live in the Dallas area, then you probably know that the New Year's Parade is back and ready to ROCK after an 11 year sabbatical. The problem is, the we need YOU to be in it! LOADS AND LOADS of fun (not to mention free food) is yours for the taking, just sign up. Please, PLEASE, PLEASE sign up as a favor to me! Repayable whenever you deem it appropriate. Go here http://attparade.com and click on the Volunteers button at the top to sign up. Signing up means giving up an hour and a half on Dec. 31 to be part of a great Dallas tradition. Come on, YOU CAN DO IT! I know you can.

That's right......click that link. What, it's too far away? Here-----> http://attparade.com

That one's closer. Click on it. Please? For me? If you have any other questions, feel free to send me an e-mail or give me a call. Thanks! You guys are the BEST!

The One With More Bad News

2006-12-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

Sorry, guys. It seems that the power box on my computer has gone out, so I cannot update like I wanted. AND until I get it replaced, no Christmas template. Sorry! I'm working on it, I promise!

The One With the MONSTER Update

2006-11-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

Woooooooowwww...It's been far too long since I got to post an update! Things over here have been CRAZY busy! And, really, it's just about to get psycho-er. My friends, we are now entering the realm of the FINAL EXAM! And I am soooo looking forward to it.

NOT! Yes, Borat, that would be an example of a "Not" joke.

Anyway, I have plenty of stuff to upload, so I think I will just update as I go along.

One of my favorite things to do of late is explore the new Criswell Center at my church. Did I tell you about this new building? It's amazing. I'm talking kick-you-in-the-butt, spit-on-your-face fantastic (name the reference)? It costs something like 49 million dollars and lives up to its cost. Well, you know me...I am not one to pass up an oppo rtunity to use my spiffy little card-key.

So Alyssa and I took a little trek...this is where we ended up.

Hahahahahaha. Look! we found a place with lots of funky pipes! I don't know what they do, but pipes are always fun to play with, right? We didn't really play that much, just poured a few cokes into the pipes, etc.

Okay, no...that would be mean. But this place was pretty neat! We were trying to get to the prayer tower, which is obviously on the top floor and instead we found ourselves in the plumbing.

I like it. I like the pipes. Okay, so moving along now.

I took a picture a while ago after I decorated Sherri's whiteboard. I know that you'll share my shock and horror that someone erased it after you see it.

Can I get real on your butts for a minute here? 'Cause, you know, I like, make a lot of tall claims and stuff. But, this song.....this song is a real work of art. It hurts me deep inside that in the music office of First Baptist Church-Dallas, my genius goes unappreciated. UNAPPRECIATED! I could be the next.......I don't know....who's a famous songwriter? 'Cause I would totally be better than he is. Or she. Anyway...

Now, come on. Tell me that ain't some GOOOOOOOOOOOD stuff! That's funny, I don't care who ya' are.

Alright...maybe I didn't write it. No, that's not true. I DID write it. I simply was not the first person to do so. I don't know who wrote it, but Mrs. Kelso taught it to me in first grade. It's friggin' great!

Moving on again.

You all know where I go to school, right? I probably shouldn't write that kind of information on the internet, but seeing as how I've already crossed that bridge a number of times, might as well hop on. I go to Baylor University.

The Southern Baptist Flagship. You walk onto the Baylor campus and you automatically get "good" points upstairs. Until two weeks ago, that is. Because two weeks ago, Baylor received a new pink flamingo for the fountain mall. A new pink flamingo that, though I personally find it amusing, might show up as a blight on the perfect image of the school.
Yes.

Yes, that IS a twenty foot tall marijuana leaf shadowing my proud institution. It may be for a good cause and all, but really....how does it make its point? Anyway, I saw the statue and I just had to roll on the ground in a fit of uncontrollable laughter for a few minutes. So I thought I would share. I hope you enjoyed.

And lastly...I wanted to give you a taste of what has been my life for the past year (and sadly no longer...did I mention that I am now a Writing major? It's so I'll be done in a year instead of three.). So here is a day in the life of a music student. I recorded this video this morning in Theory. At the piano in the front of the room is Dr. Claybrook, the best professor in the entier school. You won't be able to hear much of what he says, so I'll lead you along. After a few seconds, you'll hear him start to play a little diddy on the ivories. These melodies are our assignments from Monday. We were given a figured bass (the lower notes you'll hear) and told to write a counter melody. In this clip, you'll hear a few of these (not mine. It was second - before I realized I should record it). Somewhere around 1:15, you'll hear me laugh a little bit becuase Dr. Claybrook hit a wrong chord and made a truly terrible face. He believes firmly that teachers should not make mistakes. At 1:24, if you listen carefully, you'll hear Dr. C. sing out a familiar melody... M-O-U-S-E that someone had written into their counterpoint. At which point, Stephen asked, "What in the world is the Mickey Mouse Club?" prompting my order about the corner...

And that's it! Enjoy!

P.S. I am so excited about Christmas coming up! I am putting together new music for the Christmas Template, which should be up sometime around December 1. See you then!

The One With Your Starbucks Barista

2006-10-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Dancin'
Current Music: The Killers Hot Fuss

Hey, everybody! How was your week?? Mine was good, thanks for asking. That's why I love all my wonderful visitors. You're all so thoughtful and caring! ;-) I just got back from the movie theater and I have got to say, I LOVE the movie "Step Up!" It was so good. I mean, sure the story's been told a few dozen times already, but still...and who knew Channing Tatum could dance? Boy got MOVES!

I shouldn't have written that....

Moving on. I don't have much to write, but I wanted to share this moment of amusement curtesy of Starbucks...

The One With the Guy in the Stairwell

2006-10-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

Today, I was sitting in one of the practice rooms at McCrary when I heard this lovely sound coming from outside. So I, being the curious creature that I am, stepped out into the hall to investigate. I managed to trace the noise to the stairwell where Jonathan Hager was having a grand ole time practicing on his violin. He is AMAZING! SOOOOOOOOOO...I thought you might enjoy hearing what it's like to live at the music school. Enjoy!

The One for Canadian Emily

2006-10-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah, so...DALLAS BEAT VANCOUVER!

BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA!

;-)

The One With the Breathing

2006-10-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

*gasp*weaze*cough*gasp*

Sorry, I forgot to breath after last night's terrifying e-mail extravaganza. What a MEAN Halloween trick! False alarm, by the way. Both professors wrote back and said that I was NOT failing the classes and apologized for how unnerving the e-mail was.

Sheesh. Lucky I wore my depends today.

What.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Depends. Am I allowed to say that on the internet? ;-) You know, I think we have a warped sense of exercise, don't you? I mean, experts say it's all about the heart rate, right? So, I figure, I am just going to go stand in front of my house and get one of my friends to drive at me really fast then stop right in front of me. That oughtta just about do it. All I need is a friend and a pair of depends and I am good to go.

Special thanks to Ellen Degeneres for that one.

Oh, gosh now I've written about adult incompetence and Ellen. You stopped reading, didn't you? You're not even paying attention anymore, are you? ARE YOU?! I could write whatever I want right now and you would have no idea. The bubbles can't fight without a ketchup bottle!!

You're calling my mom, aren't you?

Narc.

:-)

Okay, anyway, I am obviously in a better mood today than last night now that I know that the Baylor mafia is no longer staking out my house. In fact, today was EXCELLENT. And would you like to know why? Allow me to share...

What? Why, yes, there WAS cotton candy calling out to me from the music office kitchen today. And I have such a kind heart, I could not let it wither in distress. So I let it wither in my mouth....MMMmMmMMmmmMMMmm! Woot for cotton candy!

Alrighty, everyone have a splendiferous day!

The One With the Skippage

2006-10-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

Is that a word? I think it should be. Actually, I think it should be a general grammar rule. Adding -age to the end of anything is okay.

Forkage: Eating in a massively gluttonous manner. i.e. Oprah Winfrey on an even year. :-) OH MY GOSH!!!! I didn't write that!!!

Snickersage: Eating Snickers in a massively gluttonous manner. As in, the wonderfully magnificent Alyssa "Booed" me today and I now have a plastic jackolantern filled with Snickers and hershey kisses! MMmMMmMmmmmmm...Have you met Alyssa yet? Let me show you a picture...

Cute, right??? That was us at the fair.

Sorry, anyway. That has nothing to do with the Skippage. I think I am stalling.

No, I'm not. Wait, yes, I definitely...no, Yeah, I am.

So, I got this nasty e-mail today from Baylor. Now, DON'T freak out...

Apparently I am failing two classes because of excessive absences. Now, don't get me started on Baylor's attendance policy....back on target. Thing is, I keep careful record of how often I miss classes, since I can only miss these two classes eleven times each. So, to say that I have passed that limit is LUDICROUS! Now, I, being the calm, easy-going, laid-back kind of guy that I am, I immediately acted accordingly...and freaked out. I sent e-mails to both professors essentially asking, "WHAT DA POO?!" Excuse my frase-ology. The only thing I can figure is that I have missed more than 25% of my classes thus far. Which is possible. But, to have missed enough to fail, I would have to have skipped the equivalent of an ENTIRE MONTH's worth of classes. Ridiculous. Anyway, I am waiting on a reply from my professors.

Worst case scenario, I fail the math class....which would be bad, since I have yet to fail anything at Baylor. The other class, karate, allows me to make up absences, so even if I have miscounted, it can be undone.

Worry, worry, worry. I HATE worrying! So, I need some more snickers...

I need the SNICKERS! Ahhhhhhhh, MUCH better!

If you wouldn't mind adding me to your prayer list for the next couple of days, I would appreciate it!

And on that note, GOOD NIGHT, ALL!!! Check out the new Top 10 list!!

The One With Blogarithms

2006-10-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone! Just a quick little note to fill you in on a new feature! If you scroll to the very bottom of the screen, you'll see something that looks like this...

If you would like to be notified when I post somethin' new, then this is the form for you! Enjoy!

The One With the Gluttony

2006-10-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Deliriously STUFFED
Current Music: BBMak Into Your Head

UUuuuuuuuuuugggggg...Gorged. Gorged? Gourged? I don't even care that that is wrong, that's how completely, 100% stuffer I am. Remember that great scene in Willy Wonka (The old, good one. Not the new "oops, our bad" one.)? The one where Violet Bouregard turns into a blueberry on steroids and gets rolled out of the factory (actually, in the book, she is taken to the juicer room and later walks out of the factory delightfully thin again, but a little blue in the face. Get it? BLUE? Hahahahahahaha)? That is who I am right now. Seriously. Except, I am not a blueberry, I am a giant chunk of chocolate. Or corn dogs.

Seeeee....let me start at the beginning. Well, not the very beginning, because it's boring and involves me being in a bad mood. Actually, this has been a pretty bad week so far. Until today after 12:00pm, that is. Wait. What was I talking about?

?

?

kitchen. Right, anyway, today was the day the entire church staff was supposed to go to the fair. Unfortunately, if you live anywhere in Texas, today was NOT a good day to go to the fair. It rained SO HARD this morning, I finally put plastic wrap across my tailgate and and renting my truck out as a mobile jacuzzi.

Yeah, fine, maybe that'a lie.

Anyway, the fair was empty today. The church was full. However, since I LOVE the rain, and I LOVE the fair and at the moment I still do NOT love Grady, I bugged Sherri until she agreed to go with me for a little while. WEEEEEEELLLLLLL.....I think that Sherri and I should have a television show. We are THAT funny! You know how I am, right? Sherri is more psychotic than I am. What? Put the gun down, Sherri, it's a compliment. We had a BLAST! I ATE SO MUCH FOOD! Here is the progression. Corn Dog--->Cinnamon Roll--->Nachos--->Corn Dog--->Caramel Apple...I was stuffed. And I gained 27 pounds in two hours. I am not kidding. I had to borrow this clown's pants. It's okay though, clowns sell their clothing for really cheep. Hee hee hee. So, Sherri and I took so pictures and had ourselves a little mid-week fun.

THEN! On the way back home, I decided it was about time for me and Jenn to have a Theme Night. Have you ever had a Theme Night? Sure you have. Jenn and I pick a movie and feast on food centered around that movie.

Tonight's selection?

So what did we eat? CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE, and MORE CHOCOLATE! It went something like this...Snickers--->Reese's--->Snicker's--->Best Brownies in the world. I didn't even get to the chocolate covered cherries, so sad!

Good golly, I am SO gonna run out of money this month.

Anyway, needless to say, I no longer function. I am a walking hunk of junk food.

And I am okay with that!!! ;-)

Good night!

The One With the Fair

2006-10-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Currently Watching: Eureka

So, how's everyone doing? Really? That's great! Oh, I'm sorry. Did I cut you off? I'll give you time to answer.

There we go. I'm glad that you are doing well. Unless you said something else, in which case, I am sorry that your day is not the best. So.......

I'm BACK!

Are you excited? You should be! I know it's been forever since I last wrote you a nice little note, but I am just so dern busy! In fact, I am kinda on borrowed time at the moment as it is. I should be memorizing "An Die Muzik." But I'm NOOOOOOTTTTTT! :-)

Hee hee hee.

Tomorrow, my entire office (the entire church actually) is GOING TO THE FAIR! Woo hoo! SO, if you are bored, feel free to join us. Just give me a call and I will tell you where we can meet up. Yes, I'm serious. What? I like people. I'm almost certain I do.

Anyway, there is a lot that I could tell you about what's been going on, but it would make for a long and uninteresting post. And we can't have that, now can we? I would MUCH rather tell you about how I am a RUNNER UP IN THE NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!!!!

Yeah, TOTALLY kidding. But then, you didn't believe that, did you? 'Cause you know me better than that! So, I am not going to catch you up with the past few months, but I will keep you posted with everything new from this point forward, you have my word!

See ya' next time!

P.S. So much fun! I am Jedi, baby!

P.P.S. Alrighty, where do I begin?

This first one is by a new band out of Waxahachie. Truett and I went to the Lighthouse to hear them last week and I was impressed! It's been a long while since I found a high school group that really had potential. And these guys have it! Rise and Shine! Tell me what you think!

And THIS ONE? Have you ever run across a song that makes you want to get up and DO something? That's what Wunderkind does for me. I can listen to it over and over and over and over and not get tired of it!

Same story with this little diddy from Impgen Heap. Over and over without end. I just love the imagery. Both of these songs are from the Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack, which you should definitely consider purchasing!

Um....hats off to Amber for this one, the COVER QUEEN of the Western world! Just kidding, AmBertha. But, she DID send me this song, and she has my undying gratitude for that. One of the best covers I've heard in a while. As always, have a listen and tell me what you think!

The One Without Facebook

2006-09-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

For some of you, this will mean nothing. For others, this will be of relative importance. It is official....

Facebook and I have parted ways. That's right. I am following the scores of others running away from the sell-out creators of facebook and returning to the safe world of Blogger. Not that I ever really left, I just don't have as much time as I did.

Anyway, I wanted you to know that I didn't delete you from my friends list of anything nasty like that, I am just punching out. But you enjoy!

More update as time allows!

2006-09-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

The One With the Update

2006-09-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

So, Diana sends out an e-mail once a year that details all the goings on in her life. She rants and raves about school, work, friends, family, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Anyway, they are fun to read, but I have never felt like I had enough going on to really do one of my own.

But now, I guess I do. Are you excited? So this is the dry run. Before I send out the mass E-mails, I thought you guys deserved to have the first read. Shall we move along to category 1?

School:
For those of you who might not be aware, I transferred in to Baylor University last fall and auditioned for the Music School around Christmas time. I am starting my second semester in the music school and it's great! Last semester was a little rough while I figured everything out and came to grips with the fact that FBA provided absolutely no music education. This whole Musicianship class...thing...is about to knock me into some parallel dimension. Do re mi fa? What is THAT? What's wrong with singing the words??? ;-) But it's interesting, if nothing else. Baylor is great and I feel blessed to be in such a prestigious school, but Waco leaves something to be desired. After spending four years in College Station, Waco just doesn't have that magic in the air. I have to hand it to the aggies, they do create a fun atmosphere. *sigh* But I......I will survive.... I should have another two years left at Baylor before I can take off for the real world. I am the oldest person in the school. I am not even kidding. But it's okay.

Work:
After wading through an application process that lasted almost six months, I finally have a job. You are looking at...wait, no. You are reading words written by the brand new Student Music Intern at First Baptist Dallas. This job is perfect. If I could, I think I would do it forever. I spend three days a week in an office in downtown Dallas with some very talented musicians who love to have a good time. It's the only place that I can hear three entirely different musical genres from three different stereos simultaneously. I LOVE IT! I almost feel like I am jinxing it when I talk about how much FUN my job is! I am enjoying working for Grady, someone I have looked up to for a long time and working with the choir that I look forward to each week. Yeah for real jobs! This ain't no American Red Cross horror!

Family:
Well, let's see. Dad still works downtown doing...whatever it is he does up there. He is looking at land in Lancaster and Glenn Heights to open two more facilities in the next year. Hooray for expansion! Mom is now a Creative Memories consultant and calls often to rub her earnings in my face. ;-) She seems to really like it, but it does mean that she has decided she has the right to take a picture of anyone at anytime. Jenn left Baylor after her freshman year and transferred into McClennan Community College. She is always talking about the friends she made while she was there, so that's good. She and I share a *cough*house*cough* in Waco and she started culinary school last week. I am looking forward to lots and lots of free food. And it had better be GOOD! I guess that's it. My extended family is still busily being utterly psycho across the entire continent, but I won't bore you with stories about that. Although it would be far from boring... ;-)

Friends:
OooOOoOOo...this could be a touchy category. What if I leave someone out? What if someone takes offense when I say that I do not have a lot of friends? Oh well...I have never been one for being the nice guy. Diana (you may skip this if you do not know her) now lives in Spring, Texas and is a Kindergarten teacher in a brand new school there. She hates it. Weeeelllll, more accurately, she hates her kids. JUST KIDDING! But she does call every day without fail to tell me about which monster blew up which building most recently. I am having a great time in my absentee role as "Mr. Jay" recording videos to send to the class to supplement their themes each week. I am sure that they don't learn a dern thing from them, but it makes them laugh, which is fine with me. Sadly, Daniel and Julie (again, skip if you don't know them) moved to Dallas at the end of the summer, so I haven't seen them in months! Ironically, I now spend as much time in Dallas as I do in Waco and I still do not have time for social endeavors. *sigh* Oh well. I am working on keeping up friendships in the music school, but the others in my class are younger...and cut from different cloth. I am definitely NOT the norm in the music classes. Hahaha. It's kinda fun to be the black sheep, "Dr. Scott, I don't WANT to be an opera singer. No, really. Stop crying, it's gonna be okay." Luckily, I have fun people to work with. I also attend a Bible study here in Waco when I can, so I am very grateful that God has placed other Christians in my life to hang out with.

Now what I else should I include?

Spare Time:

Yup, that's one blank category. :-D Most recently, I have been cleaning my house every second I get and it is ALMOST clean. I am very excited. I hate living in a dump. Other than that, I am learning piano and guitar and really having some fun waddling through songwriting. I have actually been writing a lot in the past year, and someday I hope to write something worth publishing. Other than that, I am running a fileserver on ForeverIRC that holds archives of 35 television shows. I know it's dorky, but I feel very satisfied when I finally complete a series and get to upload it to Archiver. :-) I'm a geek, and I am okay with it!

And then, there's the books, but you all knew that, right?

Okay, I think that's it. I hope that you enjoyed this little update, but if, for some reason, you never want to hear from me again, just let me know. I won't be offended, I promise. But if you would LIKE to know more, please drop me a line! You can reply to this e-mail, or check out my website at makeemwonder.blogspot.com. Talk to you later!

VTC Postponed

2006-09-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the very late notice, but due to some technical difficulties (namely the fact that the newest version of Ventrilo is unstable) VTC III has been postponed to a later date. I will let you know what the new date is and whether or not we will continue using the Ventrilo software as soon as I can.

Oh, and there should be a REAL post coming in the next few days!!

The One With the New House Video

2006-08-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

So sorry about the lack of posts! Things have been psycho crazy of late. I moved more stuff to Waco (where I am now), started my new job, had an audition today, and start school on Monday! Needless to say, I just haven't had time to Blog. Sorry! But, I DID record this video this morning, so I thought I would share it. Enjoy!

The One with the VTC

2006-08-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know what VTC stands for, I hope you are as excited as I am!!!!

VENTRILO TRIVIA CHALLENGE!

I decided it was high time to dust off my favorite of our activities and give it another go. More details in the coming days, but the tentative date for VTCIII is September 2, 2006 at 7:00pm. Mark it on your calendars! I ordered the server today and it should be up by tomorrow. And Kurten Emily, you will be thrilled to know that I dialed down the broadcast quality so that even our favorite dial-upper can participate! This round, there are 19 slots open, so reserve yours today! Click on today's P.S. link to download the Ventrilo software (which is virus and spyware free as well as being very small). By tomorrow afternoon or Monday at the latest, I should be able to give you the server settings.

It occurs to me that some of you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. Well, let me fill you in. First of all, Ventrilo is essentially a chat program that lets any of us with a microphone ($1.99 at Wal-Mart) talk for free online. The Ventrilo Trivia Challenge is a goofy trivia game that we have played in the past to ROARING success!

If you are interested in playing (and this is NOT limited to Inner Circle members. ALL are invited), please send me your desired username and password via e-mail or IM. You can find those addresses here.

As I said, more details to come, but PLEASE spread the word, because I want to have a GREAT turn out! Side note, just realized that I forgot to mail Mrs. Saylak her prize for winning the last VTC...gonna have to remedy that.

WOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!

The One With Only a P.P.S.

2006-08-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

P.P.S. So I noticed today that there are only ten songs in the jukebox. There should be eleven. So I took this opportunity to add a song that has worked its way into my list of favorites. I am not normally a JoJo fan (for many reasons, not the least of which is her irritating decision to be known by a single name), but this song is awesome! There's just something about the chorus that is very catchy and I am caught. So please have a listen, if you haven't already heard it on the radio, and let me know what you think!

The One With the Sweeneys

2006-08-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Sunday, everyone!!! I hope that you have all had a spectacular day and are now keyed up for the rest of the week! I don't really have much to say today, but I did want to introduce you to our two newest choir members who will be joining us next week. Their names are Bobby and Jonathan and I can't think of a better way to welcome them to the choir than to embarrass them on the internet!

So, beginning right now, we are going to see how many days it takes them to find out that I have this video. On a sidenote, this video IS pretty impressive, so points to them. Enjoy.

The One With the Garage

2006-08-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty boring day. My wallet disappeared, so I spent a good portion scrambling around trying to locate it. I finally found it at the movie theater where I saw "You, Me, & Dupree" last night (sans the cash that was in it), and all was right with the world yet again. I did want to share something with you though. I came home to find this....

This is my dad's brand new Suburban sitting in the driveway. Not so odd, right? Thing is, my parents have a three car garage and three cars. So why was dad's sitting outside? What was taking his parking space?

Yeah, that's the lawn mower.

Also, I went to Red Robin two days ago (LOVE RED ROBIN) by myself (sad Jay face) and had the new Santa Fe burger. Um, YEAH! So good! Anyway, nothing notable about lunch except for this. This is the coaster that my tea was sitting on.

Love it. LOVE IT!! I love clever little things like that. Who pays? Oh, you do!

P.S. Parkour. Can't get enough. This is obviously David Belle in an AWESOME commercial!

The One With All the Paper

2006-08-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

So......would you like to know what I did last night? I know you would. Don't lie to me.

No, seriously. Stop it. STOP THE LYING!!!

I'll tell you what. Maybe I will just show you.

Why, yes. Yes, it IS 18 bags of shredded paper all over the office of one of our pastors. And no, I have NO idea who did it. Hee hee hee. We have the best college group ever!

P.S. Um...yeah. So, this is wuite possibly one of the coolest things I have EVER seen. And maybe one of the creepiest...But as an amateur puppetteer, I am extremely impressed! And for some reason, I really like the music too.

P.P.S. Rain Down - On of our camp theme songs and a personal favorite of mine. I think it's a great prayer.

Welcome Home - Again, loving Brian's new stuff.

God Will Lift... I don't know what it is about this song, but it has always gotten me. I love the layered melodies at the end.

Long Train Runnin' - Yup, I got nothing. I just think it's fun.

Spinners - Yeah, it's old, and the chorus is reaks of the 70's, but I can't get enough of the piano's chord progressions. Jam, baby, JAM!

Let It Rise - THIS IS THE ONE I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT! Chapel sang this song a long time ago and I really liked it. But, I have to admit that this version by Big Daddy Weave ROCKS! I can't get enough and I am grabbing this CD as soon as it comes out. September 26!

Move Along - Just bought this CD, it's great. And this song tells you why. So, if you haven't heard it yet, give it a listen!

Sing to the King - Jeff Berry Band, told you you were gonna see them here. Great song.

The One With Col. Mustard in the Driveway with the IED

2006-07-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

So.....would you like to hear something interesting? Read something interesting? Gotta stop doing that. You don't hear a blog. You read a blog. Or maybe you do. Maybe you're weird like that.

What was I talking about? Writing about? Drat, did it again. Focus.

So, last night I was sitting in my room watching tv when my whole floor shook. I thought that the spring on the garage door had broken again. But when I got downstairs, the garage door was fine, so I headed outside to check things out. Immediately, I saw smoke floating past my next door neighbors' house, so I started to run over there and warn them.

Then I looked up the driveway.

There, like its Biblical counterpart in Exodus, was a pillar of fire. And no, I am not kidding. Somebody blew up a bomb at the end of my cul-de-sac.

A bomb.

A BOMB!!!!!!! My neighbors on the left have a joint mailbox. Well, HAD a joint mailbox. It is now in smithereens. Let me show you.

Can you believe it? This is OVILLA we're talking about. Writing about. Whatever. The most criminal thing that happens here is when one of my dogs beats up one of the neighbor's. Dogs that is. Beats up one of their dogs. They don't beat up the neighbors.

It was a big enough deal that the entire Ovilla police force came out.

That's right, we had BOTH cars at the end of our driveway. And the CSIs were there, of course...my dad and I had a grand time figuring things out. The police think that it was a teenager who lives in the city. Which brings me to my next point.

If you are going to blow up a mailbox, BLOW UP A MAILBOX IN ANOTHER CITY! Why would you do something so obvious in a city of only 3700 people. I think maybe this kid should have just written his name in flourescent paint on the sidewalk. Then we could have avoided the whole messy investigation thing. Anyway, that's a taste of small town life for you big city folks. Check ya' later!

P.S. This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Me gusta MUCHO!

The One With Camp

2006-07-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

So...in case you were not aware, I was at camp all last week. Youth camp, that is. Did you ever go to youth camp when you were in high school? Or maybe you are still in high school, I don't know. Anyway, story still applies. So, I am not actually a youth camp kind of person. In fact, before I left for college, I only went to a single camp - my senior year. It was a lot of fun. I mean, two hours each day were spent in various sports, so I wasn't a fan of that, but otherwise good.

Well, this is my first time to go as an counselor (a ref, technically) and I have to say that it was amazing! For one thing, it was one of those few times when God clearly moved right in front of us. The Jeff Berry Band (who you will soon find in the jukebox) led worship the entire week and they were outstanding. They sang a song with the lyrics "Make way to see for our God is here/Make way to hear for he's come so close" and it nearly made me cry because it felt like those words were real. It felt like God was standing in the room with us. It was such a powerful thing. More impressive was the response in these kids. Many adults crticize youth camp experiences because they are just emotional highs that never last and maybe that's partly true. Or maybe it's just that these kids feel more free away from the normal church environment. I think that our church's staunchly traditional setting is hindering our youth. They minds don't work the way older generations do. I think that the camp setting does them some good.

In some ways, camp restored my hope in the future. How cheesy does that sound? Allow me to elaborate. Everywhere I turn, I see kids that are doing horrible things and living lives that are going no where good. But at camp last week, I saw a group of kids that COULD get along and COULD change things if they really want to. When I was at camp, I don't think we were anywhere as nice to each other as this group was. I mean, there were some squabbles, but nothing big. Case in point...

On the last night, we had a baptism service with something like 12 kids lined up who had either made decisions or just never been baptized. We had a nice little service and at the end, the camp pastor openned it up to anyone else who wanted to get baptized too. In the end, 15 or so more kids came down to the waterhole to be baptized. It was amazing! The whole camp was lined up to watch. All of us with golf carts had them parked at a 45 degree angle down toward the water for front row seats. Anyway, 30 minutes after we were supposed to be finished, we finally made our way back to our cabins. I hadn't gotten much further than 50 feet when I heard a huge commotion behind me and saw the kids racing back to the water. My first thought was that the brake had slipped off a cart and it had gone soaring into the water. Alas, it was not the case...

When I walked back to the water, the pastor wsa standing there in the middle with one teary eyed freshman girl. The pastor waited until he had everyone's attention and then said this, "I just asked her why she is crying and it's not because she's getting baptized. She said it's because 'they all came back.'" And that is the truth of camp. After standing out there by the lake far longer than they had planned, the entire camp came running back to the water for one more girl. Way cool.

Gotta love it. I wish I could relive the entire week for you here, but that would simply be too much typing. I hope you get a taste of camp, because it was AWESOME!

P.S. Check out the link if you get a chance, I am telling that this band is great!!

2006-07-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hahahahahahaha. Every time I listen to this post, it cracks me up! I really was jammin' down the road and having a grand ole time. Sorry about the poor quality; I think the A/C was blowing into the mic.

Wanna hear something funny? When I got home today, the post wasn't showing up, which is not entirely unusual, so I logged into AudBlog to check it out. After making sure that it had indeed recorded the audio post, I looged into Blogger and noticed that the tour blog was listed above SHINE, which IS unusual. They are listed with the Blog with the most recent post on top. I thought maybe Kristin had updated something on there, but no....I forgot to change the AudBlog settings after tour, so my little Broadway excursion sat on the tour site for a few hours today. No telling what those parents think of me now.... ;-)

The One With Work

2006-07-19T00:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody! Well, I have good news! For the first time all summer, there is a lot going on!! Can you believe it? I should be asleep right now, but that's what summer is for, right? Staying up late without having to feel guilty? I know das right! I have to wait for my room to cool off before I can fall asleep, but I am almost there. In the meantime....let's chat, shall we?

I am chillin' on my bed listening to a song I just downloaded from iTunes, and I have to say that if all the rest of his music is as great as this song, I may just have a new artist to add to my list of favorites. His name is (are you ready for this, Canadian Emily?) Mat Kearney. C. Emily has been talking about him for a long time, but I have to admit that I never really paid attention until now. I always thought, "Yeah, I'll look him up when I get a chance," but I never did. Enter Kyle XY. New show on ABC Family. Not so great, but worth wasting half an hour on (until this last episode, which was far too liberal for my tastes). At the end of the show, Kearney's song started playing and I LOVED it! The song is called "All I Need" and the lyrics are perfect. You should check it out! Actually, I'll put it in the music player for you. Hang on. Okay, done. I'll have to fill up the rest of the Jukebox slots when I get time.

Which may be a while....allow me to elaborate. First of all, you are all undoubtedly aware that I still do not have a job. I am pretty sure that I mentioned this internship that I have been trying to get for something like six months now. It's getting ridiculous, but I don't want to cut and run. I mean, it's the opportunity to work with Grady and the rest of the music staff every week AND get paid for it. So, I put off getting a job all summer with the futile hope that this would come through in a timely fashion. Now I am dangerously close to maxing out my credit card, and no source of payment in sight. I have been doing odd jobs for my dad to try and get a tiny little bit of money, but it is slow going. My most recent job is, for lack of a better term, yuck. It started out okay. I was going to lubricate the doors on all of the vacant units at one of his self-storage facilities. At $4 a door, not a bad job!! Unfortunately, the manager at the facility saw this as an opportunity to have something done that he didn't want to do, so I am now cleaning out every single unit. Still $4 a door, but it now takes five times as long. And when there are something like 400 units, this is a BIG deal. Texas heat is not helping. After three hours at the most, I am about ready to die. Slow going. So far, I have 76 units done.

Today, however, I had a perk! Each time I got too bummed to go on, I remember that tonight was DINNER WITH AMBER AT CHUY'S!!!!! Yeah!!!!!! It was SOOOOOOO good, and so much fun to chat with Bertha. Don't ever pass up that opportunity.

Did I mention the wedding I went to last weekend? Can't remember. Don't feel like looking. So this weekend, Jennifer/Bealio/Squishie and Michael got married. I was Diana's date, because she can't work up the guts to ask a REAL date (just kidding, Diana!), and we had a grand old time. Jennifer is one of my favorite people and the wedding was PERFECT! Seriously, favorite wedding ever...even better than the ones I have been in! The ceremony was simple and wrapped around praise songs sung by Jennifer's praise team from church. It was very nice. Afterward, we all took off for the reception at a local community center and walked into one of the most gorgeous rooms ever! Chandeliers hung from the ceiling draped with crimson banners that matached the floor length fabric over every chair in the room. We had fajitas with they rest of the 400+ guests, and the obligatory dancing. It was great. The best part of the weekend was Diana's ring. Have you ever seen "THE" ring? It's this $2 fake engagement ring that she has been begging me to let her where for something over two years. Well, this weekend I finally said fine because I didn't really know anyone at the wedding. So Diana fooled the bridesmaids, and the mother of the bride...and the groom. It was something of an awkward moment when Michael leaned over, grabbed my hand, and said, "Congratulations, man! That's awesome." Meanwhile, Diana and Jennifer were dying laughing and I am sitting there going, "Yeah, um, thanks, Michael..." *sigh* This is my life.

I have another wedding this coming weekend. NO MORE WEDDINGS! No one else on the planet is allowed to get married until I do. I am not kidding! I will come over there and stop each and every one. This one is Gje (pronounced Kia...go figure) and John. It should be interesting. I am heading out on Thursday for rehearsal dinner stuff, etc. More out of town. Then I leave for youth camp on Monday. MORE out of town! Sorry, if you need me for something in the next two weeks, because it TOTALLy ain't happening. It's okay, though. Call President Bush. I have empowered him to act on my behalf.

So, that's it, I think! Busy, right? Wouldn't have it any other way. The worst weeks are the ones where I have nothing to do.

OH! I forgot something. I went to see Cars tonight with Truett and Taylor, did I tell you that? GREAT movie! Almost cried at the end. ALMOST! May have to invest in the soundtrack at some point. There is a respectable cover of "Life is a Highway" (on my all time favorites list) by Tom Cochrane that I may need to own...haven't decided yet. Maybe I will just get that one song. Gotta love iTunes.

Okay, goodnight, everyone! SOOOOOO sleeping in tomorrow.

The One With the Dancing Queens

2006-07-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: None
Currently Watching: Battlestar Galactica

So, it is about time for an update, isn't it? What's been going on.....NOTHING! ;-) Well, not quite nothing. But pretty close to nothing. This week is VBS at First Baptist, so three hours each morning are spent with 22 2nd graders on the Artic Edge. I have to say that I am a little disappointed in my church's VBS. They have kinda taken the lazy route in preparation for this week and it shows! But I don't think the kids can tell, so that's good.

Funny story. So, there is this music portion of our day, where the different grades learn songs geared toward the message we are trying to get across each day. They watch this little video that goes through the motions of each song and prints the words across the bottom of the screen. It's a nice little program, good songs, great message...Unfortunately, the guy who stands up there bouncing around to the songs could not be more gay if he had a brain transplant direct from Elton John. Monday, when we walked in, I wish you could have seen the faces on EVERY ADULT IN THE ROOM! It was hysterical. In fact, I am going to try to get a picture of it tomorrow. It's that funny. Other than that, VBS is going great. I actually look forward to going each morning. I really miss working with kids. It stinks that that whole "job" thing is still a good three years away.

I saw Mamma Mia last night. Actually, I saw it on Saturday too. Have you ever seen it? GO SEE IT!!! It's great. Funny, and with some KILLER music. I don't know if you are ABBA fans, but this musical will definitely turn you into them. There's just something about seeing three middle-aged women wearing neon spandex spacesuits dancing around. Wait...did I tell you too much about me? :-) Hee hee hee. Okay, that's all. I told you nothing is going on!! Have a wonderful week, everyone!

The One With No Sleep

2006-07-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

Current Mood: Tired
Currently Watching: Friends

I AM SO BORED!!!!!!!! Tonight, the ONE night that I need to sleep so that I can be up early and what am I doing? Did you say sleeping?

'Cause that would make you an idiot. What, am I typing in my dreams? Although that would be fun. I've never had a dream about typing. Anyway, SOOOOOOOOOO not asleep. Not even sleepy. Tired, but not sleepy. Are you ever tired, but not sleepy? I can't stop yawning, but I can't fall asleep either.

I therefore resort to the tried and true...watch lots of commercial free tv on my computer! At the moment, FRIENDS! YEAH, FRIENDS!

OHHHHHHH! I have something to tell you! So, Diana sent me a text message a few days ago that said, "I still need ideas for restaurants and do you have a favorite quote?" (which I expertly ignored because I HATE text messages that should be part of a phone conversation). Anyway, today.........

I found my quote. Are you ready for it? Here it comes! Are you sitting down? It's on its way!

"Grace, It's Christmas, for goodness sake. Think about the baby Jesus... up in that tower, letting his hair down... so that the three wise men can climb up and spin the dreidle and see if there are six more weeks of winter!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! That is obviously Karen talking to Grace on Will & Grace. IT CRACKS ME UP! The single most convoluted line of thought ever conceived. EVER! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yup...just typing away. Killing time. Not really talking about anything.

I wish I was Phoebe. She cracks me up. How fun would it be to be that psycho every single day?!

Okay, I've rambled enough. Goodnight. Sleep hopefully.

The One after Tour

2006-07-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

Well, hello, everybody! So......I'm BACK!!!! Yeah, Cheer!! Standing Ovation! Mini-wave in celebration of me! I hope that you all have had a blast over the past two weeks, although I have looked over some other blogs, and it does not sound like you have. Does America get boring when I leave? 'Cause that's entirely understandable. Anyway, tour was great! If you haven't looked through the tour blog (which is where I have been updating for the past two weeks...duh.), then please CHECK IT OUT! I finally finished uploading everything last night, so there is much to see. I switched from Google Video to YouTube before I left because YouTube does not personally screen every video that is uploaded (which can take up to a week), and while it's nice to have the video live minutes after I upload it, Google Video is SO much more stable. Oh well. Speed wins over all.

So, Seattle and Vancouver were WONDERFUL! I cannot tell you how perfect the weather was the entire time we were there. I mean, seriously, I am convinced that all that talk of rain in Seattle is just to discourage tourists. We didn't see a drop! Vancouver was the same way and both had the whole rolling hills with lots of trees thing going on. Very cool. This tour was unlike any in the past because it was truly a mission tour instead of a concert tour (we only gave four concerts. Last year we gave twelve). We went to VBS sites, homeless shelters, sports camps. ALL OVER, basically. It will also be remembered always as the tour infamous for schedule changes. Halfway through tour we had to throw our iteneraries away because they were no longer applicable in any shape, form, or fashion. The schedule changed daily and we changed with it. I know that many of these kids hated this tour and that makes me very sad. Partly because that means they missed the point and overlooked all of the ministry we did, partly because I WANT them to have a good time, and partly because I am afraid they won't come back next year. I am worried about the freshman in particular. This was their first Chapel tour and I know that they have always heard about how awesome they are and I know they are disappointed. Gonna have to work MIGHTY hard to pull them back in. But that's okay. I have dirt on most of them. ;-)

So, anyway, I miss the nice weather already, but it had to end sometime. This is wedding month, which means I will be out of town quite a bit. Ugggg. Just kidding, Gratz to Gje and Jennifer! Hope your week goes well!

The One With the Concert Choir

2006-06-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody! So, I TOTALLY forgot to mention that I put the Concert Choir's spring concert in the jukebox for your perusal! It was recorded live, so no mixing, but it still ROCKS! You should definitely check it out. There is an hour's worth of music for when you are bored, but I recommend that you start with Psalm 23, Ngana, and Ride On, King Jesus. Let me know what you think!

ALSO!!!!! I leave for tour TOMORROW! WOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO! I am so excited! Right now, I am mad unpacking from last week and packing for next week. And I just finished updated the tour blog too, so now you can head over there and listen to the tour recording! It's GOOOD, yo! Just follow this link:

www.chapeltour.com

ANNNNNNDDDD. One last thing. As most of you know, there is always an e-mail account set up for us on tour and I LOVE GETTING E-MAILS FROM YOU!!! sponsors@chapeltour.com Please, send me e-mail! I will do my best to reply, but I may not be able to until I am able until I am back in Texas. Don't let that stop you! I will not be updating this blog while I am gone either, because I will be working on the tour blog! So add it to your bookmarks and watch for the updates.

P.S. Did I tell you to send e-mails to sponsors@chapeltour.com ?

P.S.S. Make sure to include my name in the subject line.

P.S.S.S. sponsors@chapeltour.com

The One after the Intercontinental

2006-06-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, I am TIRED!!! This week was a complete blast. I have never before spent a week in a hotel room this nice!!!! I am about to fall asleep, so I am probably not going to write much, but I wanted to give you a little taste. Let's start with the pictures, shall we?

This is me and Suzy the first morning of the convention........don't we look happy? That's because we are. We are in the penthouse. ;-)

Yeah, so this sign was on the door to the pool. You KNOW it's there because somebody walked into that door.

An Ode to all my faithful readers out there! I told the most prominent doctors in Texas that my name is Jim Hawkins!

And this is casino night! It was so much fun! I lost $2000 in fake money. Woo hoo!!! The lady with the short hair is Janet. She took most of it.

And now, for the crowning glory of the week! I would like you to meet Larney. He is Diana and Suzy's uncle and hysterical! This is his Donald Duck impression.

2006-06-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

Sheesh, you guys have got to tell me when something on here is not working!!!!!!

I fixed the Top 10 links on the side, they should all work now.

The One I Stole from Seth

2006-06-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well....I have a million tiny little things to write on here, but I always think, "No, wait until you have a post they will fit into."

Phooey. Forget that, I think I will just ramble on until I cover everything of get bored.

So, I am calling this post "The One I Stole from Seth" because his LiveJournal provided much of the material for today's post. Let's start with the pictures of Halli. I HAD to put them on here because she is ADORABLE! I seriously miss that silly little bundle of energy. I used to walk up to the front door and there would be these two little black eyes and a nose bouncing behind the window almost at eye level. That dog can JUMP! Anyway, here is Halli with her new haircut.

Hahahahaha. Isn't she cute??????? *sigh*

Moving right along...my next purloined item is one of the most creative surveys I have seen in a while, so I thought I would take it. Here we go....

The phone quiz:

Grab your cell...
01. What is the phone make and model? LG cu320.
02. What are the last 3 digits of your mobile number? 986.
03. What does the 2nd message in your inbox say? "paperwork."
04. Who's the first person who comes up under the letter M? Maggie Wilson.
05. Who's the last person who called you? Diana Saylak.
06. Who was your last missed call from? Julia Odeski.
07. Who's the 2nd person who comes up under D? Dan Bellamy.
08. What does the last message in your outbox say? "Are we having a meeting about tour on Sunday?"
09. Who's the 3rd person who comes up under J? Jenny Hunt.

Just realized that there is no number 10. Seth, what happened to number 10?

11. Who's the 4th person who comes up under S? Scott Creacy.
12. What does your welcome note say? I don't have one! Wish that I did.
13. How many messages are currently in your inbox? 66.
14. Background? Rippling water from Fountain Place.
15. Who's the 2nd person who comes up under R? Rachel English.
16. Who's the 5th person under T? ITracy Ashley.
17. If you're on Pay as you Go, how much credit do you have? Do Rollover minutes count? N/A
18. Who's the first person who comes up under A? Andrew Moon.
19. How many bars of signal do you currently have? Five.
20. Do u have a camera phone? Yeppers.
21.Do u have any nude pix in your album? *sigh* Yes, but you can't see anything. A friend sent it to me...
22. What does your 2nd msg in your outbox say? "Sorry. Chili Dogs."
23. How many numbers do you have on your phone? 84.
24. How many people are stored under with a M name? 8.
25. Do you like your phone? Yeah, BABY!

Okay, that's it. Wasn't it fun? You should take it!

I don't know why.

So, I am kinda going through Joseph withdrawal. I don't know when I will be involved in a producation again and that makes me a little sad. I wish there were some opportunities at Baylor to take advantage of...alas, there are not. Lots of opera scenes, though. yippee. Anyway, I just keep telling myself that tour is only SEVEN DAYS AWAY!!!! WOO HOOO!!!! I finished the tour blog tonight, and that puts me in a better mood. If you get bored, you should check it out at http://chapelincanada.blogspot.com when you get a chance. I am excited about filling it with posts and audio posts and video posts. We're coming, Canadian Emily!!! :-) Mildly frustrated that I still have no idea what our itenerary is...or even when we are leaving. Flight number? Nope. And I still don't have a job. In fact today, I am a little upset with my church.

Ah, and now I have forgotten the other little things to write about. And I am a ittle bit sleepy, so I am going to take advantage of that and FINALLY go to sleep. My sleep schedule has been all thrown off since Joseph ended. Gonna have to get over that so I can drive to Waco tomorrow. Joy. Goodnight!

The One With Joseph Part 2

2006-06-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

Well, HOWDY! So let me just say...

These kids are AWESOME!!!! I have been rehearsing with the cast of Joseph for a little over a week and these high-schoolers continue to impress me. To begin with, they have all but mastered this massive musical (which is 100% music, in case you haven't seen it, plus 50% dancing, 30% costume changes, and more character shifts than could be counted. Yes, I am aware that that is 180%. My name is Willy Wonka.) in only one month. In addition, they are spectacular! At one point during the same song with all of the brothers each night, poor Reagan has had to stop because I crack up right in front of him. Both of the directors have said repeatedly that this is the best show of Joseph they've ever seen, and I must agree. If you can come, COME!!!

Today, we moved all of the sets from the warehouse to the theater at SMU. Much fun. Actually, notsomuch. Well....it WOULD have been fun if I got to move any sets. Unfortunately, I got called away to do a garage sale pickup....there went my day. Anyway, getting late. Much to say, but losing motivation. :-) Goodnight, everyone!

P.S Always loved it. The cats crack me up. Expecially the white long haired one in the water.

P.P.S. ALL HAIL THE COVER!

Where the Streets Have No Name. Um......U2, BABY! Covered exceptionally well by Chris Tomlin. In case you were unaware, I am a cover FREAK! That does not mean that I like all covers (The Duffs, Our Lips are Sealed, anyone??), but I give them all a fair listen. Anyway, Chris covered this song for the Artists United for Africa CD and it's great! Have a listen!

Kyrie Eleison...originally by Mr. Mister, not such a great group, but a spectacular song and I have to admit that I like Mark Schultz's version even better! Enjoy!

And finally, an Ode to Peter Gabriel...no matter how many versions of this song I find, I love every single one (including the STELLAR cut on A Little More Runway!!)! Although I am not normally a Nichole Nordeman fan, she outdid herself with this one. It still retains the etheral feel of the original, but it has a warmer sound to it that I love. Have a listen! Enjoy!

The One With Joseph

2006-05-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

You know how you always think, "Summer come 'round, I'll have SO much time on my hands. I will be able to update my Blog like none other."

The thing is, that's absolutely true. The flip side of this ironic little coin is that nothing of note fills all of that extra time. I don't have a job yet, so my hours are filled with playing games, watching tv, reading, and a little practicing. Fun, to be sure, be not exactly Blog material. Which is why last week I ran my news mockery. However, THIS week I just felt no motivation. And I will not have much time to Blog either. Would you like to know why?

I AM IN JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! The choir is performing the musical (the best one yet!) and I get to sing in it! I am so excited! Grady needed someone to sing backup who knew the music, so HERE I AM!! We have a new director this year, Bob Hess, and thus far everything looks amazing. In fact, if you would like to come, just let me know!!! C. Emily, I am saving you a ticket. ;-)

Okay, that's it. I just wanted to say hello to everyone out there.

Ahhhhhh...And a special shout out to MAX, PRESTON, LAWRENCE, and BRIAN! Thanks for popping by. You may leave your mean comments here. :-D

The One With the Survey

2006-05-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

QUESTIONS TO START THE SUMMER:

1. Are you in a relationship?
I am in LOTS of relationships! But you probably meant romantic relationships...you should be more specific. No.

2. Do you hate more than 3 people?
How sad would that be? You know, I can't think of of anyone that I really HATE. I think of the people I dislike STRONGLY and I know that if they apologized, all would be good, so I don't think that's hate.

3. How many houses have you lived in?
9. Sheesh. I guess that's not technically true. Here's the breakdown. 5 houses, 2 apartments, 2 duplexes.

4. What is your favorite candy bar?
MMMMMMmmmmMMMmMMmmMmmm...Reese's ANYTHING!

5. What are your favorite shoes?
Umm...Weird question. Black Kenneth Cole Reactions? Or those brown shoes from Target?

6. Have you ever tripped someone?
Probably, I am kind of a clutz. I don't remember though. I am kind of absent minded. Emma, Ross wants you. PHOEBE! Why does she keep making that noise?

7. What was your least favorite subject this year?
World Civilization Since 1750!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

8. What was your favorite subject this year?
Piano.

9. Do you own a Britney Spears CD?
NO!!!!! BWA HAHAHAH! I RULE ALL!

10. Have you ever thrown up in public?
Define public. Like, have I ever been on stage and blown chunks on the front row? No. I'm good, I nail at least four rows back. :-) I have thrown up in front of friends though.

11. Name something that's always on your mind.
Nothing. My mind wanders too much to land on one thing.

12. What is your favorite music genre?
Christian. Alternative. Classic Rock. Pop. Crooner. I am not picky. No rap or country though. YUCK!!!

13. What is your sign?
Out of my mind, back in five minutes.

14. What time were you born?
I don't remember, I wasn't paying attention. 2:14, I think?

15. Do you like beer?
NO! Gag a maggot with a spoon!

16. Have you ever made a prank call?
Hahahahaha. Um...three days ago. And two days ago.

17. What is the most embarrassing CD you own?
Backstreet Boys, maybe? But I am not embarrassed about it. They have some great harmonies! I am pretty selective about the CD's I buy. Only the good ones, baby!!

18. Are you sarcastic?
No, NEVER! Whoops, ruined it, didn't I? (I mean, REEEEENED it)

19. What are your favorite colors?
Blue and Green

20. How many watches do you own?
Oh, four or five, but only one that I really wear.

21. Summer or winter?
Winter!! Winterwinterwinterwinter. Who needs summer? Summer is just winter that stinks. Hot and stinky.

22. Spring or fall?
Fall!!! It's like Winter Eve.

23. What is your favorite color to wear?
Blue.

24. Pepsi or Sprite?
Spoon. Maggot.

25. What color is your cell phone?
Silver and Black. What a dumb question.

26. Where is your second home?
I guess I am in my second home now. But Emily wrote the Endlers. So maybe I should say the Saylaks. Or the Sampsons! Or Colorado...that's kinda like a third home.

27. Have you ever slapped someone?
Not that I can recall. I have always wanted to though. And I want to throw a drink in someone's face. Apparently I want to be a woman in a bad 80's flick.

28. Have you ever had a cavity?
*sigh* Yes. First one last summer. Not my fault though! The sealant popped off and I couldn't brush deep enough!!!!! *sigh* *sigh again*

29. How many lamps are in your bedroom?
3 (second home) 2 (other second home) 2 (first home) 2 (third home)

30. How many video games do you own?
Hang on, let me count. 12 on the Xbox. More than I could ever remember on the computer. 8 on the GameGear. Anyone remember those? I SOOOOO still play mine.

31. What was your first pet?
Bennett...a miniature poodle that some chump kicked across the front yard. He died. He didn't like me anyway, I was the new baby in town.

32. Have you ever had braces?
Yeppers.

33. Do looks matter?
No. Pride in how you look does though.

34. Do you use Chapstick?
EVERY DAY!!!! It's my drug of choice.

35. Name 3 teachers from your high school.
Mrs. Hillebrand, Mrs. Merriman, Mrs. Wilcox

36. American Eagle or Abercrombie?
I suppose American Eagle if I had to choose. Although, Wal-Mart or Target ideally.

37. Are you too forgiving?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Diana, am I too forgiving? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

38. How many children do you want?
bunches and bunches! 12!!!

39. Do you own something from Hot Topic?
Not a thing. Yeah, ME!

40. What is your favorite breakfast?
Uh....sleep...

41. Do you own a gun?
No!!

42. Have you ever thought you were in love?
No.

43. When was the last time you cried?
Why do ALL the quizzes ask this question? Two weeks ago when I watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

44. What did you do 3 nights ago?
Slept! Dumb question.

45. When was the last time you went to Olive Garden?
Mmmmmm...about three weeks ago. Had me some Tiramisu.

46. Have you ever called your teacher mom?
No...That sounds SOOOOO Greek Tragedy.

47. Have you ever been in a castle?
Yep, Like FOUR! 'Cuz I'm awesome. What. You didn't know?

48. What are your nicknames?
Um, Jay, Jim Hawkins, Jasonite...that's all currently I think. Except for Bear. He calls me, "That person...who feeds me."

49. Do you know anyone named Bertha?
Hahaha! No, but I wish I did! I am changing Amber's name to Bertha. Congratulations, you are now BERTHA!

50. Have you ever been to Kentucky?
Nope. What's in Kentucky? A bunch of horses running around in circle?

51. Do you own something from Banana Republic?
No. But I own stuff from GAP and Old Navy...same company.

52. Are you thinking about somebody right now?
Nope.

53. Have you ever called someone Boo?
No. And if I do, SHOOT ME!!! And if you do, I WILL SHOOT YOU!

54. Do you smoke?
Only on Saturday nights when I recreate the Burning Man Festival.

55. Do you own a diamond ring?
Yes, from when my husband proposed. Oh wait.....Nooooooooo...

56. Are you happy with your life right now?
I am happy with where it is going, does that count?

57. Do you dye your hair?
No.

58. Does anyone like you?
I am sure that they do, how could they not? I mean, LOOK AT ME! I am such a catch!

60. What were you doing May of 1994?
Celebrating the end of school.

61. Do you own a Backstreet Boys CD?
HAHAHAHAHAHA! No. I own three.

62. McDonald's or Wendy's?
McDonald's!!!!!

63. Do you like yourself?
How could I not?

64. Are you closer to your mother or father?
No.

65. Favorite feature of the opposite sex?
Smile.

66. Are you afraid of the dark?
No....the monsters that taunt me from under my bed in the dark.

67. Have you ever eaten paste?
Who says paste anymore?

68. Do you have a webcam?
Yes. Not plugged in though.

What? That's it? What a horrible way to end a survey. I am changing it.

70. Where did you get this?
From KURTEN EMILY! Yeah!!!! She's most awesomest!! See you in a month, Em!

The One With Lisa

2006-05-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know you have been wondering about the Lisa stuff everywhere. I talked to Lisa Ulrich yesterday and she mentioned that she came by this site once and her name was not on the Inner Circle list so she NEVER CAME BACK AGAIN! Anyway, I told her to check it again today....hence the Lisas everywhere. This is the message she sent to me.

From: lisa
Date: May 24, 2006 2:24 PM
Subject: Hilarious!
Body:
in case the message I left on your blog space didn't show up. I just wanted to tell you that you made me VERY happy today as I read your Blog. You are such a COOL COOL person. In fact you are SO cool I don't even know if I can be your friend. I LOVED the sites on your blog. My fav. was the one about ways to take care of Lisa's lawn - haha and her cats and dogs!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH I laughed outloud VERY hard. Thanks so much for the smiles and including me in your space 0 even though it was like I played a major role or anything on your space :) hehe.

See? Now why would anyone NOT want to be my friend? :-) I hope all is well with you. I'll update more when my room is not sweltering.

SHINE News at Midnight

2006-05-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

*At Work Warning* May cause uncontrolled laughter.