I Miss Puddleglum...I Really Do

I'm listening to Puddleglum tonight because I miss them. I miss being in Oldmangrady and playing shows with them. I miss hanging out at the Puddleglum house eating uncooked spaghetti and hazelnut Pirouette cookies. I miss the snowstorm show in Wilson.

Yeah...it was cool seeing them get signed. It was nice seeing my name in the liner notes of The Swift CD. It was funny getting negative EMI royalty balances. But I miss Puddleglum....The Swift just isn't the same.

I got over Phillip Wall leaving. I managed when Chris Byers left. But now Trae is gone too. Trae....not with the band anymore. It should be a day for mourning.

Man....I miss Puddleglum.

Monday Nothings

I realize that the date on this will say Tuesday but it's still Monday to me. I did absolutely nothing today outside of some minor cleaning.

I'm re-reading The God Makers. We have some LDS guys who are staying a couple of houses down from us. I want them to come over and chat but it's been a while since I seriously looked at any of their teachings. They've been real polite the few times I've spoken to them as they rode by.

I'm addicted to a stupid TV show. I've been watching 24 ever since it came on the scene five years ago but this season has been the most captivating one since the very first. Lots of plot twists and unreal situations....but that's why I love it. My only problem this year is that they've killed off way too many long time characters. That typically doesn't bode well for a TV show. We'll see if it comes back for one more.

I've been listening to a lot of old Christian music lately, due largely to my recent joining of Last FM. I kept seeing names like Steve Taylor pop up so I dug out a ton of things. Right now it is Steve Taylor but I just finished up a Randy Stonehill set. I had the DeGarmo & Key cranking the other day. That was interesting. Lots of Petra and Stryper have made the playlist, but that's just me.

Sin For A Season - Steve Taylor

There's a sweaty hand handling his cocktail napkin
"come on up and see me" is scribbled with a gold pen
"but you'd better ring twice"
seven months after his little indiscretion
he sits with his wife at a therapy session
for a little advice"if the healing happens as the time goes by
tell me why I still can't look her in the eye"

"God I'm only human, got no other reason..."sin for a season...

There's a shaky hand shaking with the hand of her hostess
drank a little much, but she'll drive herself home
if she can make it to her care
she never saw the sign or the boy with his daddy
driving home late from their very first ballgame
and they don't get far
now the years run together as her guilt goes wild
she still sees the body of an only child

"God I'm only human, got no other reason..."sin for a season...

Wealthy lips say "keep us from the Evil One"
while the praying hands with deliberate cunning
on the carcass of the cold
gonna get the Good Lord to forgive a little sin
get the slate cleaned so he can dirty it again
and no one else will ever know
but he reaps his harvest as his heart grows hard
no man's gonna make a mockery of God

"I'm only human, got no other reason..."sin for a season...



Three musical suggestions to anyone out there reading:

1- Fleming & John
2- Over The Rhine
3- Pedro The Lion


Do yourself a favor....find them....listen to them....be a better person.

Happy Sunday

I'm kicking back, listening to some Jennifer Knapp. I wish she'd come back. Christian music desperately misses her voice.

I checked out some Barlow Girl. Not bad. My wife really liked them a lot.

Listened to some solo Kevin Max....who knew the guy was so good?

Steve Taylor is a genius and should write more songs.

I need another Rick Altizer album.

I've really made an attempt to listen to more Christian music lately. I haven't discussed this in here yet, but I really feel like I need the Christian lyrics these days. I'm also shedding some of my bias towards anything remotely CCM. Casting Crowns aren't that bad and I can deal with them. They do have decent lyrics as well. I've also given Pillar and Skillet a second listen. They are tolerable. Kutless is a little harder for me to swallow but I'm making myself listen to them. Day Of Fire aren't bad either. I've got some FFH and Avalon on my hard drive when I need to really mellow out.

I'm trying an experiment to see what happens in my head if I listen to mostly Christian music. I know this may sound silly to most of you, but I've really been struggling with some things and I think some of it may be related to some of the things I've been listening to lately. Let's just say that I've let my guard down and I believe the Devil has taken advantage of it. We'll see what happens.

We had a good day at church today. It was one of those days where I just felt like I was where I belong. It's nice to have those. Today after church, the Senior Saints ordered pizza and hung out with me and the family. It was a nice chance to just hang out with those who I don't interact with that much. We had a representative from the Christian camp at church today and he stayed and ate lunch with all of us. It was a really good time. Tonight we took all the kids out to Sonic and bought them ice cream. It was rainy, windy, and chilly but we still sat on the picnic tables and had a good time. I'm leading worship for the next three weeks while our primary leaders (husband & wife team) are out of town. I'm actually gonna play the piano and sing next week. I'll be doing my best Michael W. Smith impersonation.

We got the new carpet and chairs in the sanctuary. We also got a new 16 channel board and snake for the praise team. Things are getting upgraded left and right. It's good to see people working together instead of bickering over these kinds of things. It makes things so much nicer.It feels good to post an update and not gripe or fret about things I can't control. I hope you all are encouraged by the good news as much as I was today.

Friday At Last

I was asked where I went to school and I've decided to answer.

I'm a rising Junior at Roanoke Bible College. It's a small (about 225 students) school supported by the independent Churches of Christ. I came here once in 1994 (at the ripe old age of 24) but left after one year. I had some issues with myself and with the school at that time and I didn't handle them in the most mature way. Here I am 12 years later finishing up something that has been LONG overdue. Fortunately, God is merciful and forgiving.

I'm still waiting to see what I got on my Biblical Doctrines exam. I've heard rumors flying around that the grades weren't very good. That wouldn't surprise me. To all you college folks out there, have you ever had a professor that was a WONDERFUL person outside of class but just seemed to not cut it in the classroom? That's kind of the way this class was. The professor is a super nice guy and is VERY smart but I don't think he did a very good job in this one. His doctorate work is in archaeology (did I spell that correctly?) and I imagine that his history and archaeology classes would rock, but he wasn't the greatest choice to be teaching systematic theology. But that's just my opinion. I had him for Life & Teachings of Christ as well and he did a little better in there, but I was frustrated taking this Doctrines class with him. He went off on too many tangents that were totally unrelated to the topic and there were several times when we didn't finish the notes before the quiz times. I know...I know...we're college students and we should be able to hang. I don't know...he just seemed a little unorganized in this class. I kind of feel bad even saying all this because he is a GREAT guy and I like him a lot. I sure don't want to take very many more classes with him though.

I'm contemplating taking Greek I next semester. I found out that I'm getting TWICE as much money from my home church this year and I won't have to cut back on hours. I'm registered for 15 right now and Greek would make it 18. I really want to get in 4 semesters of Greek and at least 2 of Hebrew before I graduate. Of course, my wife is coming back to school next semester so we'll probably be here at least one year after I graduate so she can finish up. That would give me time to squeeze some language classes in. We'll see how it goes.

Graduation is tomorrow. Good luck to all of you finishing up. I will get there eventually. I have to remind myself that my Mom was 40 before she ever went back to school so it's never too late to finish. I did want to make it before my 20 year class reunion but if I don't....oh well.

Back For A Spell

I've decided to pay a little more attention to this thing. The Xanga I keep is pretty much used to interact with classmates and I've decided to spend less time at that other site I frequent. I always wanted this to be one those "thinking man" kind of places but it turns out that I'm not that much of a thinking man after all. I do have opinions and ideas that I can share and I hope that this becomes an outlet for those things. We'll see how it goes.

We're in Final Exam Week here at school. I've got two more to go and then I get a break until the end of May. I'm taking an intensive course on the Pauline Epistles in the hope that I can get closer to my 2008 graduation date. I'm currently double minoring and am pushing it. The intensive class is one week of lecture (8 hours a day) and then a series of reading and writing assigments due at intervals throughout June and July. It should be much fun.

Last Fm

As you can see, I've decided to reveal my first name. Enjoy knowing it.