I have been going out to Lake Monticello for several weeks now at sunrise. It is amazing the difference in the sky and atmosphere from day to day. The early morning time is so peaceful. It is a time to my self but could enjoy it with my wife or a friend. A cool breeze, the songs of birds in the air, maybe the faint sound of turkeys in the distance. It is difficult to get out of bed that early and it is not fun being the fuddy dud that goes to bed early to make up for it. But it is worth it.
Tell me, when was the last time you saw the sunrise. Where was it? Did you share it with someone? What comes to mind when you think about it. If you can’t remember, I challenge you to start one day next week watching the sunrise and let me know how it goes.
Human tongues are fascinating. The tip of your tongue is where you taste all sweetness, the sides of your tongue are salty and sour, and all bitter tastes are at the very back. The mixture in the middle is the finish and is typically the deciding factor in what we like.
I have been trying some different fruits and veggies and food and drinks just to explore the taste experiences in a new light. Pairing food tends to be a little easier when you are pairing it with other foods. Pairing ice cream can be fun too. Things get a little bit trickier when you start pairing drinks with those foods and desserts. We can always tell when a drink doesn’t pair well but it isn’t as easy to do a process of elimination with drinks because there are so many. Sure we can always refur to the standards like soda and tea or milk and water.
Take juices for example, it isn’t easy to find out what goes with grape juice, but we know that garlic bread and pastas can counter the sweetness giving us a satisfied palatte. So, I challenge us all to venture in to trying different drinks with are meals. See what counters or maybe even accents different foods that we so often eat and enjoy.
I myself am no genius on the matter but the link above is to a leading internet wine critic website and he is excited about what he does. I would love to have your comments but he would love to have your questions.
Is it good to be busy or bad to be busy? Jesus seemed to be busy and yet he was most likely up at the light of day if not before praying and meditating on God’s word.
My problem tends to be that I am so busy with something on every night of the week that when I get home I want to be lazy and I sure as heck would rather be sleeping in the morning. I do always have a better day when I get up early and get to work early but then my nights are so busy that my lack of sleep catches up to me and gets the best of me.
When a free day comes up I don’t do any of the “todo” stuff on my list because I just want to rest. Mainly because I feel like I deserve it and sometimes I probably do.
The thing is I don’t dislike any of the things that I do. So how do I choose? How did Jesus choose? Sometimes in scripture it seems as though he had too many irons in the fire. He rolled from one miracle to the next in several instances. So do I keep on being busy or do I choose the most important things on my list?
It’s so weird. I have to be honest I was skeptical when I saw it too. I thought to myself, as I was searching for beat-box videos on my new iphone, there is no way that a video of someone playing the flute could anyway possibly be cool. Boy was I wrong. Check this out.
Man, I thought I was getting a steal! I took my forty bucks down to walmart and got the most expensive wireless keyboard and mouse. I got the most expensive because you normally get what you pay for when you are purchasing electronics. Not this time.
I use my keyboard often but not just for typing. When I am in Photoshop, I use my left hand for keyboard shortcuts and my right hand on the mouse. Some of these keyboard shortcuts are three to four keys at a time. Let me tell ya, it wasn’t happenin’ with the Micro-Innovations. It couldn’t even multi select files in my file browser when I held down the shift key. I will say though, It was nice to beable to open up calculator with the grey button at the top. But that’s it
And the mouse was worse. It was battery operated and had a switch and a button on the bottom for turning on and off. If it shut off while in the on position (it did this often when I left alone for five minutes) I would have to turn it off for a minute and then turn it back on. If the little red laser came on, then I would press connect if it didn’t come on, I would turn it back off and wait longer. Now you wouldn’t have to go through that process if you remember to turn it off before you get up for five minutes.
Needless to say the forty dollars was placed on a gift card when I returned the set back to walmart. The lesson to be learned here is always keep your reciept when shopping at walmart and think twice before buying a wireless keyboard and mouse with a brand that is unfamiliar.
There will be a sequal to this post so stay tuned for the post on what I replaced the walmart innovations with.
I have to say that most of the time, I hate being wrong. It is especially bad when I am wrong and my wife is right (very seldom). That is until this very fine day. I told Lee Ann that I would shave my head before Steve Jobs would lower the price of iPhones and boy was I ever wrong.
Apple drops the iPhone 8GB price by $200 bones
You knew the day would come when Apple would drop the price of the iPhone. However, you probably didn’t think it would happen in just over two months and by $200. Yeah, that’s one is kind of a shocker and I’m sure there are some $600 iPhone owners out there that are a bit steamed at the moment. However, I’m not one of them. Why? Is it that I have this unlimited fountain of money? Nope, I just don’t get ticked about money I’ve spent months ago for a product that I’ve been enjoying. Sure, if I had just bought an iPhone this past week, I’d be marching down to the Apple store for a refund. However, I’m just not going to sweat money I spent on bleeding edge technology 65 days ago. Ouch! OK, I’m over it.
Now the real question is, how much is the 4GB model? Apple says they will sell the 4GB model while supplies last (read - they don’t have many left), but they didn’t say at what price. Does that mean that the 4GB model is now $299? If so, that would be a steal for someone that could get by with 4GB of storage. NOTE: A quick call to my Apple store and yes the 4GB model is $299 while supplies last. So if you want one at that price, don’t hesitate.
You can read more of this article (I highly recommend reading his others that is if you are into tech stuff) at:
…that was the question of the evening a few nights back when I had the idea to cook stir fry. Yes, the question awaiting an answer, after I looked up the recipe on line and in two cookbooks. The trouble was that I didn’t have the question until WE decided to cook stirfry.
You see I have this philosophy about cooking. I will say that I have made many things in the kitchen that were not worth eating. Yes, I am not a perfect cook. So, back to my philosophy, when you bake, you follow directions. When you cook you follow your taste. If you know what sort of things you like to eat, then you know what sort of things to add more of. This particular night, I just wasn’t feeling that corn starch needed to be in my stirfry. But Lee Ann insisted that it would make it thicker. So, I insisted on a second opinion
. . . we called the Parkers. They gave us the wok, so they should know if corn starch is an ingredient in stirfry. But alas, they didn’t know. But Suzanne did have a wonderful idea. "Divide the ingredients," she says "into two diferent pans and mix two different sauces for each and then decide which is better."
So, we did. I must say Lee Ann gave it a good effort. I feel that if she would have mixed her sauce in a seperate bowl it would have turned out better, but she poured each ingredient in the hot pan and it evaporated before she got the next ingredient ready. However, I mixed a quarter of a cup soy sauce, a half a cup of cider vinegar ( a little less of this probably wouldn’t hurt), and two tablespoons of my Pampered Chef Asian seasoning mix. The consistency of mine I thought was more Fortune Cookie like than that of Lee Ann’s. It may have been a little more soupy but lots of good flavor.
So, her question was corn starch or no corn starch. And my question as it always goes, is do you trust me?
So, I must say that when I travel Lee Ann does most of the driving. Mainly, because her sense of direction is far greater than that of my own. However, I am the king of the road when I can use my Garmin StreetPilot® i2. My failed attempts of getting from point “a” to point “b” have come to a ceasing halt and I can now drive without feeling lost. For those of you who are interested this model is discontinued but I am sure that it is only because the new models are so much better (and expensive).
The reason we call the StreetPilot® i2 Vicky, is because one of the many features for the StreetPilot® i2 is a voice giving you turn by turn directions. Now, this feature is wonderful in a big city that you are not familiar with; however, when we are in Monticello or familiar areas we turn “Vicky” off. The actual name “Vicky came from the movie “iRobots” (great movie by the way) the main motherboard computer in this movie has a voice. In the movie, every security camera, robot, or electronic device for that matter was connected to Vicky. Sort of a “Big Brother” atmosphere. So, we thought that the name was fitting.
Of course, we have had some trouble out of Vicky but the majority vote has been that she is very useful. When you navigate to one of your programmed favorite spots the StreetPilot® i2 gives you a precise time of arrival and mileage distance to your next turn. The storage card that ships with the StreetPilot® i2 is a little smaller than I like but it works.
I would love to upgrade to a new color screen model some day but for now Vicky does just fine.
I am truly excited about the new building that Journey has aquired. I found it very different and almost uncomfortably comfortable.
This I do not want. There was nothing comfortable about Paul and the apostles teaching from town to town. They never new what response they would receive, yet they continued teaching. In fact, more times than not they new they would not be received well, yet they continued teaching. So, my challenge, not to just Journey but to The Church Body as a whole,
is not my own words but is me in agreement with a fellow musician and christian brother Derek Webb
After ten years in a Christian band, backstage in the music industry and in the hallways of church buildings across America, my attention as a songwriter has turned to a fresh affection for the Church. It seems we know all to little of who She is, how She should dress, or what She was made for. I have found that Scripture is provocative when it comes to these issues and so these songs are not for the faint of heart. Truth is, God would rather die than be without her, and she is both wretched and radiant. I’m convinced that there is only one righteousness suitable for Jesus’ bride, and he is jealous for her love. For the believer, truth is freedom. Even truth that is hard to hear. May these songs stir all of us to see, as if for the first time that we have (still) a great need for a Savior, and a great Savior for our need.
So my prayer is that we might be stirred, that we might be shaken, that we might be driven to desire more of him. That we might not be uncomfortably comfortable in the days to come.
