Tom
Slacker
Spending time on facebook
10:35amAnna
ya and im not gettin paid for it like you
10:35amTom
That’s cause you made bad choices about life. Spending time going to college and such.
If you had a slacker attitude early in life, it would have carried you over to now.
but NOOOO you had to work hard and excel.
Analog Wii
My family and I went camping last weekend and even in a place with no electricity, cell reception, running water or bathrooms, we managed to get in a little Wii gaming.
Analog Wii. It’s the next revolution.
And the pixel count was off the scale.
Why does church have to be SO FUCKING HARD
Here’s an excerpt of a conversation with my friend Jon that I had this morning.
Me: and *then*
Jon : and *then*
Me: God hit me with something else
Which, as an aside, really frustrates me sometimes
Kelly & I have been going back and forth about staying at the journey, etc
and how does it affect the kids, us, blah blah
And I had a realization: That if God *does* keep us at the journey, for WHATEVER reason, that I can’t just sit by and ‘attend’. I have to put enough faith in God that he’s got me here for a reason, and that it’s easy to be a servant, with a servant’s heart when you love or are passionate about the person (or church) that you’re serving, but he calls us (and, unfortunately, that includes me) to serve him and his church EVEN WHEN I’m disgruntled and upset and don’t want to. That I need to get over my pride and serve in the place he brings me, inside the restrictions, despite all the issues and people and frustrations and anger, because otherwise I’m saying that I don’t have enough faith in Him and his plan. I can’t just glide by
Jon:
Me: So.. that’s where I’m at. I’m asking God to let me know where I should be
and to soften my heart enough to serve there, no matter what goes on
Jon: wow
?
Jon: humility SUCKS
Jon: Saint Francis, BITE ME
Me: *sigh*
I feel like God’s really tearing me down
like I had all this hope about what the journey ‘might’ be and that was all mixed up with what *I* wanted and thought a church should be
Jon: oh yes
Me: and when that didn’t materialize, some of that turned into pride, and anger, and then ‘righeousness’
Jon: especially with the relaunch
Me: Exactly
like “THIS ISN’T WHAT GOD WANTS”
but that was coming from my own ideas of what *I* wanted church to be
and He’s trying to tell me: “Tom, I want YOU to serve others. Not push people into serving others. Not push people to change. You. Get down on your knees and wash some feet.”
And…. I don’t know if I can
?
Jon: sucketh, but what you just wrote is beautiful
Vacations, Funny Stories, Venison.
Thanks to the great SJ, I had all of last week off, and in true american style, the family went to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and California Adventure instead of staying home. Our families all live on the other side of the country, so why not! It was a great trip overall, one of the best family vacations that we’ve ever had (by my judgement). I took beanie on her first roller coaster (Sidewinder), as well as Space Mountain (She hated it.) McGough got to ride the monorail in the driver’s car, and that was awesome.
On another note, I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a budding photographer (she’ll remain nameless for embarrassment’s sake.) We were talking about some of the pictures that Kelly & I had taken at Disneyland and she mentioned that she had been having trouble with one of her lenses, that the photos that she’d been taking had been a bit blurry, not quite sharply focused, and she thought that something might have been bad in the lens, an element out of place a tiny bit or something wrong with the autofocus mechanism. I told her to try another lens and the pictures came out razor sharp, so her diagnosis seemed likely. Later I was looking at her camera bag and lenses, admiring them, and looked at her range of filters – UV, Polarizing, Diffusion, etc. I asked her about them, and she filled me in, but I noticed the diffusion filter wasn’t in the box. I asked and she said “Oh, it’s on my lens (the ‘broken’ one) – I put it on a few weeks ago to play around with it.” I replied something to the effect of “right around when it ‘broke’?” She stared at me for a minute until it set in… and now the lens takes sharp pictures again.
State Of The World, Pre-Halloween
So I’ve been wanting a ‘classic’ strat for a while, and when I got a small bonus at work recently, I decided that I was going to sell my other strat (2000 American Standard) and buy a ’62 reissue. I sold it this week and have been checking around to see where I can get a good deal. They had one at Guitar Showcase but not in any of the colors I want (I wanted Olympic White, Seafoam Green or 3-tone sunburst). List $2K, Sale price $1399. I have a friend that works at an online music retailer who said he could get it for around $1100-1150, depending on the color (apparently the sunburst is more expensive.) And he could either get it during the Christmas window or here at their local store when he was back for Thanksgiving. I went over to the store and they didn’t have any of them in stock, and said they’d have to special order it (with a deposit) if I wanted it. After hanging out with my wife, I convinced her to come back to Guitar Showcase and check out the guitar and show her the colors I was thinking of. (She rolls her eyes but puts up with me! Love ya hun!) And after we do that, I show her the ‘vintage’ room where they have some amazing guitars and such behind glass, and a bunch of Fender Custom shop stuff, custom relic’s etc. And as we’re leaving the vintage room, I see tucked behind another guitar, a ’62 reissue sunburst. I check the tag and it’s on Consignment. I pull it out and look it over, and it’s unreal, completely unused, tags and plastic still on the pickguard.
It looked as though it had never been used, ever. The guy goes to check on the listing and eventually comes back with the case, brown tolex, perfect shape, not a single nick even on the case. So what do I do? Look with pleading eyes at my amazing wife who, with great wisdom tells me “Pay for it so we can go get the kids.” Pictures coming soon.
In Other News: We appeared on Mystery Diagnosis this week, the episode was called “The Woman Who Craved Pickles”, and it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it was going to be.
Also, my virtual band is going to play a real gig. Well, half of us anyways. Will update further.