April 2004 Archives

I mentioned earlier that I saw ship to shore at mosaic by no accident. s2s (as I will now call Ship to Shore) gave the room a good rocking, even without a drummer. The first song started out well, fell victim to some timing issues, then recovered nicely. After they slayed their technical dragons, they spent the next few songs showing the crowd what they are about. The final song of the set was extraordinarily good though. Rice and Begnaud cut a precision groove that Vossler navigated like a ball bearing. After that performance, the night's teaching on Revelation was subdued, because everybody in the room knew that the four horsemen have nothing on s2s.

Here are some photos I took that night.

Some of you may not know this, but I have strict editorial standards for this blog. Before I save a post, I consider whether it reads like it belongs in Reader's Digest. If it does, I delete it. I lose about 2/3 of my blog entries this way.

I've made the decision to sacrifice quality in favor of quantity. Readers, prepare yourselves for an onslaught of splenda-laced stories about my girls' antics.

I went to Mosaic tonight to see Ship to Shore (more on that in a later entry), and I saw a creepy driftwood sculpture in the lobby of the Austin First Baptist where Mosaic meets. I had my camera with me, so I took a photo. It really got creepy when I looked at the photo after I took it, and the sculpture appeared to be covered in blood. Every photo I took of it had the same blood-covered look. After I transfered the photos to my computer, they looked less bloody, but it is still pretty creepy looking to me.

I guess this is supposed to be an angel. If angels really look like this, it brings new meaning to the obligatory "don't be afraid" every time they appear to somebody in the bible. My hunch is that angels don't really look like this. If I saw this sculpture outside a church, I would think it was an ancient goddess of ugly or something like that.

According to my parents' best recollection, today is my 30th birthday. Since 30 is divisible by ten, this birthday is more significant than most, but it doesn't seem very significant to me. I think that is because I've been thinking of myself as almost thirty for two years now.

As for the day itself, this has been one of my better birthdays so far. It started at about 6:30 when Zoe got up. Because I am to be treated like a king today, Sarah got up with her, and I slept in until 6:45. I had chocolate cake and a birthday song for breakfast, then I danced with Zoe to her new Sara Hickman CD and did a Cinderella jigsaw puzzle with her twice. After the cake settled, we went to Hyde Park Bar and Grill for brunch. Zoe was kind enough to ask me what brunch is, so I got to use one of my favorite Simpsons' quotes; "It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end". I may have said melon instead of cantaloupe.

The Austin Symphony Spring Family Concert was next. It was Zoe's first time to see an orchestra, but the real reason we went was to see Joe McDermott who played some of his kids' music with the symphony. It was excellent. Zoe was tired when we got there. I think that actually helped her stay quiet during the orchestra-only part at the beginning. Zoe perked right up when Joe started playing and danced along for most of it, but she sat in my lap and snuggled her blanket during a couple of the mellow tunes.

Now we're back home after a little misadventure figuring out where I parked. That is the down side of dropping the girls off at the front; there are no other witnesses to the parking spot. Zoe and Ava are both sleeping. Sarah is reading the wimpkiller bbs (for the first time, I think), and we are resting up for a romantic birthday dinner with just Sarah, me and Ava.

This probably doesn't sound like a fun birthday to most of this blog's young, twenty-something fan base, but that is part of being thirty. I've learned to do what I really enjoy instead of what other people say I should enjoy. What I enjoy most at this point in my life is spending time with my family. Zoe is at an age where she is constantly discovering new things. To me, watching her learn, is about as good as it gets.

As Zoe has grown up, so has her capacity to understand God and the world around her, but she is still a child.

After learning that sometimes we can hear god "with our hearts" instead of our ears she said that God was saying something to her. Instead of talking, Zoe said that God was singing to her. We asked what he was singing, and she said "The Elevator Song" which is on a kids' CD she recently got.

Soon we will explain the difference between hearing the voice of God and having a song stuck in your head.

I downloaded Flash MX. I hope to annoy you all for months to come.

UPDATE:
I removed flash because it is intollerable to look at for more than two cycles. If you want to see it (don't watch for too long), you can see it here.

I finally got around to doing my first stencil.

At some point, somebody thought this was good marketing.

wow

No matter how tempting it becomes, I will never order anything from a tv commercial that is advertised as coming with a free Aerosmith harmonica keychain.