arkansas

arkansas

Well today we are heading home. We had a good visit with all of the family. My Meme Brown's health is not all that good and she gets pretty lonely. She may have to in live with my uncle in Louisiana. We might stop today in Memphis for ribs at The Rendevous if we have time.

11 secret herbs and spices

My Aunt Billie showed me how to make her specialty today. Ever since I was a little boy, her tomato macaroni has been one of my very favorite foods in the world. Today we had a big family dinner and she let me watch her cook the macaroni. Aunt Billie was my PawPaw Brown's baby sister, and has always been like another grandmother for us kids. PawPaw Brown has been gone for quite some time now. He was a pastor for many years, and was always very respected. This afternoon we are going to try to go out to his grave.

i could teach you but i'd have to charge

i could teach you but i'd have to charge

Tonight we went to Braums. Dad wanted to make sure he got in the picture. Giant milkshakes and really good hamburgers are their specialty. No trip to oklahoma is complete without a visit to Braums.

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain

Well we arrived in ok about noon today. My family is all doing well. This is my brother and his wife. It's good to see family

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain

not a creature was stirring

Well not much to report here. Yesterday was my birthday, I slept in. Then I got up and took a shower first. It is always hotter than going second like I do the other 364 days a year. And besides I didn't have to worry about getting hair all over me from the previous user. We went to a movie[Dick and Jane] It was ok. Not great, but just ok. We went out last night to one of my favorite restaurants. PRIME RIB! Oh Baby! 12oz of melt in your mouth meaty goodness. Then I went to Barnes and noble to use a gift card that I had received from one of my coworkers. I bought the latest offering from my favorite author; Orson Scott Card. He's best known for the amazing novel "Enders Game" But writes other stuff in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy area. I got the new novel, Magic Street. I haven't started it yet. Going to read it on the journey to Oklahoma to see my grandmother.

Oh yeah we might be moving. Not away, just across town. We would be 5 or 6 minutes from both of our jobs, instead of the 20 minutes we have now. Nice little house.

Well have a great Christmas. I'll try to post regularly next week, but no promises.

a festivus for the rest of us

Every year i try to send out christmas card to everyone in the church and most everyone else gets an email card. this year i sent this.

wrapping

this afternoon while Lydia went to the store i was in a wrapping mood. So i started wrapping up random things. Not gift wrapping, shrink wrapping! Well before long i had several different things done including one of her diet pepsi's. It took her about two minutes to find the fridge stuff. She was highly amused, and immediately wanted to know what i had done. I shrugged and she immediately headed for her panty drawer. I had wrapped everything in there. She about fell in the floor laughing!

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hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah... hal - le - lu - yah

Most of you know that I'm not an Ipoo user. I use the iriver h320 for my music. I thought I posted about this, but I can't seem to find it in the archives. My mp3 had twice the functionality of any ipoo out a year ago. Now it just won't play videos, which is fine with me. I used to love the itunes store because I could rip the drm off of the music files using a little app called jhymn , convert them to mp3's or ogg's and then transfer them to my player, since it won't play the apple format. This was a perfectly wonderful solution until the newest versions of itunes came out and nobody at hymn seems to want to crack the latest version of their drm. So basically I had to find a new place to buy music online.

I found this site, allofmp3.com apparently they are based out of Russia. Since I'm so over the cold war, I figured I'd give them a shot. I mean, what's the worse that could happen? I guess they could steal my identity and fill my Visa with charges from Russian prostitutes. But I gave these russkies a chance anyway and was very pleased with the results. You actually have a choice as to what file format you want to download your files in and at which bit rate. Important if your an audiophile like me. You actually pay for the bandwidth to download, so I loaded my new account with $10(that's about 286 rubles if your curious) and downloaded a complete recording of Handel's Messiah(over two hours in length). I figured the record police wouldn't get me to bad if I was doing something actually illegal.

I thought I might sing along with my new recording. Yes, I know I'm a cornball. So I pulled out my trusty old messiah score that I had purchased used from the old Foster Music front office. When I looked at it I saw that the previous owner's name had been scratched out, upon closer inspection, I realized that it had once belonged to some chick named Stephanie. I thought that was funny

long december

scott reminded me in his comment yesterday about the edge. Lydia and i were planning on working all of the edge conferences this year, but plans have changed and we are pretty bummed. Most of you have read here that our friend bill has multiple myeloma, a pretty aggresive form of cancer. Bill's wife, sally, is our church pianist. She normally substituted if we have to be out of town, but right now she never really knows if she will be able to do something. Bill is kinda touch and go a lot, so I can't really take a sunday off right now. So with much dissapointment, Lydia and I will not be working the edge. The good news is that not being busy the week after christmas is going to allow us to go with my parents to oklahoma to see my grandmother. My brother is going to drive up from dallas, and we will all get to be together.

any ideas on what you buy your 80 year old grandmother for christmas?

bustin' my chops

You know I would think that my own wife would realize that I have have been extremely busy lately. I guess I was wrong. The first email I get this morning is my wife, fussing at me for not updating my blog often enough. She even went so far as to compare my lack of updating to a certain somersetian now living in the Nashville area. You know I guess she forgot that December is like the busiest month for everyone, and especially ministers. I guess she also forgot that Sunday was our choir musical that we have been rehearsing for the last 2 months. Or maybe she doesn't realize that in my spare time I've taken on an extra job so her and the kids can new shoes for Christmas. Wait that's not me. That's one of those movies of the week that saturate the airwaves at this time of the year instead of new episodes of lost. Well anyway, I have been busy.

I had my last checkup from my surgery this morning. Doc says I'm doing well. Everything looks good and I should be able to resume all of my usual activities in next few weeks. But I wonder how long I could really milk the whole, "I'm not allowed to do any heavy lifting" thing if I really applied myself. I can just imagine it now...

"Honey, You know we have to move, so call me when the new house is ready and everything is moved in because..".

"No dearest, I don't think I will be able to hold your exremely heavy winter leather coat for you while you try dresses on in the dressing room for the next two hours. You remember what the doctor said"

" Son, have fun at school. Your mother will have to help you move into the dorm because you know about my condition. Hey don't forget your cinder blocks."

merry Christmas folks, uh if your wondering what to get for my birthday on the 23rd, I'm kinda into pudding right now.

Good movie

Yesterday, my day off, I did something that that I usually hate doing. I went to a movie by myself. This is especially bad if the movie is a comedy, because you always want to laugh with someone. Occasionally, if I'm home alone, I'll watch something funny and turn to Lydia to comment or laugh only to realize I'm completely alone. Yesterday, it wasn't a comedy, and even though there were only five other people in the huge stadium theater. I had a great time.

I've been anxiously awaiting and talking about the upcoming release of Aeon Flux. Lydia made it clear that she cared absolutely nothing about seeing it, so I went alone. I thorougthly enjoyed the animated series on Mtv when it first aired several years ago, but I don't think I ever really understood the story. It's a post-apocalyptic tale set four hundred years in the future after a pandemic kills most of the worlds population. Bregna, the only remaining city has been ruled by the Goodchild family since Trevor Goodchild invented the vaccine that saved Bregna during the outbreak government is corrupt and people keep disappearing. Aeon flux is an agent with a secret group trying to expose the corruption. The big screen version was fantastic. Great costuming and cinematography! Charlize was pretty good. Driven very much by the action sequences, but the story is easy to understand. I highly recommend it.