Mindless Juices

Green Day was awesome! Pyro, lights, sound, confetti, and rock 'n' roll, baby! It all rocked. They've been doing it for 16 years and they know what to do. I guess you learn how to pump up a crowd when you've been doing it that long. Now, I am, by no means, an original Green Day fan. I bought Dookie because of Basket Case. I, however, was not the typical kid and listen to the single track over and over again, but I listened to the whole album over & over again. This may have been because Dookie was like one of my only three CDs at the time. I quickly found out the Basket Case might just be the worst track on that album (still a great song, but only to point out how great the rest of the album is). Longview, Chump, Welcome to Paradise, & F.O.D. are all great songs. They played enough of the old stuff (including Brain Stew off the not-as-great Insomniac album) to make me quite happy. However, the crowd singing for those songs were much more subdued than for the American Idiot stuff. Tre Cool may be, arguably, one of the best rock drummers still playing. He puts on a great show and his stamina is uncanny. Although Nick will have to confirm, they played like 25 songs and Tre played beats through almost every interlude of introducing the band, Billie Joe's political rants, and the 16 "Raleigh!" shouts and consequent applause. Also, remember the almost 10 minute long Jesus of Suburbia where there really is no break... and they played quite a few songs back to back with a musical segue. Tre is the man! I, like Kelli, am getting old... not for the same reasons... my back is sore from head banging. NOt my neck, my back... between the shoulder blades. It's sad actually. It's sadder that I thought to took an Advil after the concert in an effort to be pre-emptive against the soreness. It's been two days and I'm still sore. Very, very old... Jimmy Eat World (or JEW, {hehehehe}) was good, but I would have liked more, too. Too little to really get into it. I mean, I get that the opening band can't give a better show than the main act, but the difference between the two left plenty of room for more from JEW {hehehehe}.

Soon, I will be looking forward to not being bothered with work. Although my phone will be on, I will not have to answer it. Though my laptop will be on, I will not have to check Email. Soon, I will enter 48 hours of escape and I am looking forward to playing lots of video games and maxing my relaxing. Perhaps I will find the time to blog and let you all know how it is going... maybe between napping and lying on the couch watching CSI.

So, Jeremy and his wife Kara came in about an hour later than expected. We met them at their hotel, The Washington Duke. Funny moment: Jeremy asked, "So where's the Duke campus?" We informed him that he was on it. "They have a hotel on campus?" Yup... ah, Duke. So, we decided to go to Elmo's for a late lunch. We love Elmo's. We had a good time, but I half expected Jeremy to try to get me to work for his company. He definitely was leaning towards it when we spoke last and has mentioned it several times before. We talked about work, but he never tried to talk me into it or feel me out to see if I might be interested. We ate fast and headed back to our house for a quick tour. Then, it was back to the hotel. The visit was too short and too hectic, but it was still good to see them. We then ran a few errands. This was not in the plan for the day. I like knowing the plan. It has a lot to do with the fact that Sabrina makes plans for us a lot of the time. It only makes sense since her calendar is more packed than mine. Anyway, I don't like surprise plans. It wasn't too bad, but it did cut into my potential nap time before dinner plans with John and Alana (sp?). John's work made him run late for dinner. That was actually nice since we had a late lunch. After dinner, we played Settlers of Catan. It's a freaking awesome board game that I really want to own. Google "Catan" or click here. I tried to sleep in on Saturday, but didn't. We watched some TV and I played video games. That night, we went to Preston and Angie's. After dinner, we played Dread Pirate. Preston sort of ruled, so it wasn't too much fun, but could have definitely been... good potential. There wasn't enough time for another game since we needed to leave sort of early. We chatted for a while. I, unfortunately, wasn't able to make it to church because of a system upgrade at work. I volunteered to work on Sunday. It went pretty smoothly considering the size of the upgrade. Sabrina and I watched some more TV, I played some more video games and we read two chapters in Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince. All in all, it was a good weekend.

So, my good buddy Jeremy is coming to visit this afternoon. He is in town for Andrew Leroux's wedding. He is getting married at Duke Chapel. Jeremy is in the wedding party. He and Andrew were good friends in college and rommates for a while, too. Jeremy is a great guy! He's a great friend, a man of God, and a romantic... which is helpful when you need some help impressing a girl. During my freshman year of college, Sabrina came to Theta Xi's semi-formal, Sweetheart. Jeremy and my rommate, Jeff, got some swords from Jeff's dad (retired-Marine, I believe). They dressed up in suits and pretended to be our chauffers for the evening. I think Jeremy even had the hat. When we arrived, Jeremy and Jeff announced us and drew the swords and we walked under. It was very cool. The night was fun and memorable. As for the title, Jeremy's nickname in college was Luke because he looks quite a bit like Mark Hamill. I was looking forward to them ringing our doorbell, looking through the peephole and shouting up the stairs that, "Mark Hamill's on my front door!" just to make Jeremy laugh.

My all-time favorite fast-food food is the Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell. Now, to understand my love for this "sandwich," I believe I need to provide a little history. I've never liked hard tacos. They inevitably fall apart and you end up requiring a fork. But, the crunch... oh, the crunch. Hard tacos definitely taste better than soft tacos which offer sanctuary from the mess. When Taco Bell invented the Double Decker Taco, I was thrilled. You get the crunch without the mess. And all thanks to a little refried bean "glue." Brilliant! Although, I've never been a refried beans man myself, the minor taste alteration was worth the cleanliness of the meal. Then, some time after introducing the gordita (in my opinion, simply a greek taco), they brought out the Cheesy Gordita Crunch. The soft taco was replaced by a gordita. The bean "glue" was replaced by cheese (mmm.... cheeeeese). They added some pepper jack sauce. And... {sigh} heaven... Seriously, I love Cheesy Gordita season. It's a limited time "sandwich" at Taco Bell, so I have to get my fill of it before they take it away from me for almost another year. There have been times when I've gotten tyerd of eating them before the season was up, and, yet, I am always dissappointed when I go to Taco Bell and it is no longer an option. Lately, my choice lunch has been a Cheesy Gordita Crunch and a Caramel Apple Empanada. With NC state tax, the cost is $2.79. One advantage of the gordita wrap over the soft taco is that it is much more filling. I bring Sprite's from home, so I don't pay for way-to-highly-priced fountain drinks. If you haven't tried this meal, you're missing out. If I'm wrong, it will only cost you $3.00. The Sprite website is kind of fun if you're bored. See link above.

For those who do't like posts about work, I'll post something else today that is non-work related. Promise. So, in cable, we want to get to you tomorrow if we can't get to you today, unless you ask us to come later. So, they measure me and my team by how well we do that. Anyone who calls and can't get an appointment for the next day is considered a beyond. For the first nine months of our goal year, my area did not have a single beyond. Unfortunately, the streak could not last forever and I've taken some through the digital upgrade. Meanwhile, because of technicians moving on to bigger and better things, my team is two short and that makes for some difficult weekends. Last night, we had 20 customers who had to take a beyond. Of those 20, I have contacted 11 who have either cancelled or rescheduled their appointment to today. And the day isn't even over. I don't know if my management will appreciate the 11 (maybe more) customers that I worked hard to take care of sooner than later. It's always possible they will focus on the 9 (maybe less) that I didn't take care of sooner. Who knows? Either way, I feel good right now for having helped 11 people/families get their cable working before the weekend.

So, as Sabrina mentioned, there is a very big concert coming up... Green Day with Jimmy Eat World opening. Now, I've been to something like 16 shows. Not really the 27,000+ that Jordan's been to. Newsboys have given the best shows so far... coming down from the rafters on a UFO, spinning vertical raised drum duet, giant inflatable concert hall... they're gimmicks, but they're great gimmicks! I have requested the day of the concert and following day off from work. I hoping to make it a wonderful experience... I'll probably still work, but I'll do it from the comfort of my house and, preferrably, my bed. Wireless internet is a must if you have a laptop... Someday, I'll convince my wife to tell me how to do the stat tracking thing and start addressing my audience. Speaking of audiences, I have volunteered to participate in a drama this Sunday. With some grace from God, everything will go smoothly for Angie's first endeavor of leading the drama ministry at newhope. Hopefully, I'll get the script soon to start memorizing lines.

So, Sabrina says that I shouldn't post about lovable geeks because I'm a guy and it's weird. But, you have to understand that I'm also a geek. And geeks stick together. We cheer for each other and want each other to get the girl. And there's honor amongst geeks, so we don't fight over girls. When was the last time you saw two geeks fighting over who was gonna get the girl? Meanwhile, I've been watching a lot of CSIs lately. Donnie started our DVR recording them and I've always watched them when I caught them, but never recorded them. Well, now there are a ton on our DVR from Spike TV. Since there's nothing else really on, it's nice to have something on the DVR to watch. Sabrina says she has a difficult time getting into it and I realized that it takes like 10 episodes to get into the characters. If you're not instantly hooked by the "science" or the crime, then it takes a little while before you get enough info on the characters to understand the little things that happen in each episode.

If you haven't started watching The 4400 on USA, you're missing out. Go rent or buy the first season. It was intended to only be a mini-series, but is now a series. So, the first season is relatively small. Meanwhile, there's a new geek who is pretty lovable. His name is Marco. He has a crush on Diana and it's not exactly a secret. Sometimes, I think she even flirts back with him a little bit.

So, yesterday, Sabrina was loving enough to give me a day of playing video games. I tried to make sure to contribute to the weekly maintenance of a clean house. I fixed up the living room and emptied the sink (except for things that needed to soak) into the dishwasher. Of course, we went to church and lunch with friends. After that, I invited my friend Mike over for some EQ and possible Halo action. First, we tried Halo. After updating to the latest version, we discovered that I must have used his Product Key at the last installation. I've misplaced my product key, but definitely have a legal copy and key. I just can't find it. So, we decided we just won't play Halo and we logged on to EQ. We headed over to an area where there is typically very few people, but for some reason, there were tons. Additionally, sometimes rare creatures spawn and they are often more powerful than the regulars. Well, ALL of the rare spawns were up and walking around. Unfortunately, they are too powerful for me and Mike to handle on our own and we NEEDED the regular creatures for our quests. We got a few things done, but not much before a message came across our screens: "We will be taking down ALL server in approximately 15 minutes. Please log off to avoid the loss of data. We apologize for this inconvenience. There is currently no ETA for when the servers will be restored." OK... Sony rarely takes down their servers unexpectedly. Almost all maintenance is planned and downtimes posted at least a day before the servers come down. They almost never take the servers down on the weekend, planned or unplanned. This is why EQ is a great game because Sony unsderstands that they need to work around the customer (in this regard). So, we go back to trying to figure out how to play Halo. We get a product key off the internet to use just for the night. We find one, it works, but when we join a game, Mike's screen looks like he's looking through a prism and all sorts of textures are screwed up. It's completely unplayable. We clean out his case, verify his fans are working (and no overheating is occuring). He updates his drivers. We remove the card and reset the BIOS. Nothing helps. No matter what we did, we had an intermittent bad output from the card. Now, Mike recently upgraded his MoBo and we're not sure if it's the AGP slot or the card itself, but needless to say, our gaming was done for the night. {sigh} The good news is, Sabrina and I spent the last two hours of the evening reading the sixth Harry Potter book. We read two chapters instead of our normal one and I greatly enjoyed that time. I highly recommend that couples read to each other. Bedtime is a good time. You get to react together and it's a way to share without the pressure of coming up with something the other person doesn't already know. It's great fun and a good time to get some cuddling in if you're into that.

So, I've been trying to figure out God's plan for me serving at newhope. I was truly burnt out on the tech team and feeling very stretched. J.J. and my wife have graciously taken over (although it's put a lot of work on Sabrina for which I feel bad about). Still, they seem to be doing well, perhaps even better without me. I'm sure I never really learned how to handle myself as a leader in that regard. I think teaching technical stuff isn't my fortê. If someone doesn't get it after the second or third time, I get frustrated. While I continue to learn appropriate expectations and patience, I've been praying to find my place to serve. Then, something sort-of-happened. Angie Hairgrove (formally Yoder) has been some what pushed, but not reluctantly, into taking the reigns of the drama ministry at newhope. While I certainly don't feel I could lead anything, I believe I could be an asset and I'm pretty sure I want to be a part of this ministry. I loved working with Elle, but rarely got a chance to do so. I am definitely a student of a more traditional theatrical training where you are sure to face out, project, block out scenes and, all the while, develop your portrayal of the character. I think Angie's formal education sets the stage (no pun intended) for that more traditional approach to newhope drama. I've only worked with her once, but it was good. Once we encouraged her to boss us around (I believe good actors prefer to be bossed, but like to contirbute, too), it was an overall good experience. I have had the theatre bug since I was like 7. I've done more plays than I can remember at times and worked backstage for more productions than I could ever remember. The other thing is that I love singing, too. I tried out for WAM, but was told to keep working on it. Although that was a little let down, I did try to work on it and was thinking of trying out again. Still, I don't know if that's where I'm being called either. I love praising the Lord through song. I definitely feel... closer?... to Him when I'm singing praises. Meanwhile, I can easily do that from my seat in the congregation. Still, I've got the skill set to help on the tech team where help is often needed. Despite the fact that my knowledge and skill specifically at newhope is certainly less than others that have far surpassed my ear and skill in that building, I could probably still help as an able body to stand behind the board and make it sound... OK. I am pretty certain that my joy is lights. I think I like painting with lights. I studied what lights could do in high school and got to even utilize some of the cool effects throughout my theatre "career." Lighting is much more emotional than sound and can have a great impact on a message or a moment (see J.J. about Easter Sunday at the high school). With some more lights or intelligent lighting, I think I could really enjoy doing lighting design, but that's future and I would like to serve now. So, I pose the question: What do you think? Help me by letting God speak through you and give me some advice. I'll still be praying and trying to hear from the Man Himself, but I believe a foolish man does not hear God speak to him through others.