Silver Dollar City

With the winter comes the cold weather, falling leaves, and Christmas lights. And to see Christmas lights done right, you have to go to Silver Dollar City. Especially when you only live 30 minutes away!

I've uploaded some pictures of this family event. These were taken with my new phone which takes some really good pictures. I am please that I don't have to carry around a big camera bag anymore. Even better, the phone can record video with sound as well. I am working on getting these converted from MP4 format to WMV/AVI/MPG/?. As soon as I get this done I'll post them on the web.

Talent

I have always had real appreciation for skills that are the result of supernatural talent and hard work. I alluded a bit to it in my previous post on sports. Today I write about music, and more specifically, performance. Below are two clips of Eruption by Van Halen. When I watch Eddie Van Halen play in the first clip, I think about how much he has worked on this playing and how much he must still practice. I wonder what it must be like to think of music and have no problem playing it. The ease at which he plays the most difficult things. I play a little guitar and just the idea of playing with that much distortion on the guitar without it sounding terrible is challenging for me. Eddie is doing wonders with his left hand while his right is holding the guitar pick, doing pick harmonics, changing strings, and working the tremelo (more accurately should be called the vibrato) bar. Walking around the stage, oblivious to any stage fright, playing the crowd while at the same time in his own world. This is a talent taking to a VERY high level. I often wish I had this level of talent at something but usually check myself by thinking of all the sacrifice it takes to attain.

The second clip is just plain cool in that it takes an electric guitar solo that was a tribute to classical music and brings it back to a classical instrument. I would love to hear a violin version with the same sound effects as the guitar. I am sure it exists somewhere.

Anyway, here's to excellence!

Original Recipe



Extra Crispy

The best part of sports

I have found that my interest in sports on TV has hit an all time low. I have watched about 15 minutes of sports since the conclusion of the Spurs/Suns series in 2006 NBA playoffs. All 15 of those minutes were spent on the Thursday night NFL opener between the Colts and the Saints. I haven't watched any baseball this season! I have found this break very pleasing in that I haven't been filling up my head with meaningless stats and "awareness" of the current status of the various teams and players. I really don't feel I am missing out on anything important.

But this sabbatical has not been completely pure. I was invited to play fantasy football for both my workplace and by my best friend. I really should have resisted but the sweet siren song of "the draft" still drew me in. There was also that little bit of peer pressure to be part of the group that I succumbed to. Anyway, I have done very well in this area as well. I have averaged less than one "fantasy checkin" a week on these teams. I have also not spent any time researched or pouring over the stats to figure out who to pick up and start and such. I can really feel the extra time that this has gained me to spend on other things that I feel are more important at this point in my life.

Interestingly, I have spent MORE time reading about the NBA. I think it all started with the Boston Celtics and the NBA Draft Lottery. The Celtics had done so badly in the previous year that they had a very good chance at landing one of the top two picks in this year's draft. This would most certainly mean getting either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, either of whom would bring new hope to my floundering favorite team. The draft lottery is just like other lotteries where ping-pong balls are picked randomly to determine who picks first. This randomness is added to prevent teams from purposing losing game in an effort to get the better draft position. Well, this randomness "worked"! The Celtics ended up with the 5th pick, which was the worst they could have done. So I had the emotional high of the possibility of the good pick, the low of the actual 5 pick. But, kudos to the GM Danny Ainge who managed work out trades for both Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Long story short, the Celtics look to best among the best teams and my interest in the NBA is re-kindled. There are some many intelligent bloggers in the NBA world that I don't feel like I am being dumbed down in my reading. There is even a guy who is watching old NBA games during the off-season and recapping them in his own words. It is great mix of nostalgia and op/ed.

Bottom line... I like sports because of the rules that make it possible to determine a winner and loser. I really appreciate this since in life, the rules are not clear and winning is not easily defined. I also like to see people working hard to be excellent at what they do. I like being able to directly see the fruits of their dedication to proper exeecution and exceptional fitness. I tend to root for both the underdog as over-achievers and the "overdog" as beating the odds and staying on top. Finally and most importantly, I like the drama and unexpected. Case in point...see the end of the 2007 Chicago marathon where the ending seems to embody all these things.

First question wrong on Millionaire.

Skip ahead to 45 seconds in to skip all the introduction stuff.

Glad this wasn't me!

The look on his face as he realizes he was wrong is priceless.

Practical Life Lesson #1

Never ever ever buy a portable basketball goal from a retail store. There are more than enough that people would gladly give away.

I Think I Am Thinking

I am currently on a "brain" kick. This means that I have once again gotten interested in how the brain works and, more generally, how our life is defined by our perception. Or perhaps...how our perception are shaped by our environment?!? It is all very interesting to me.

For instance, why do we need sleep? The obvious answer is to rest our body but the deepest stage of sleep results in our brain, heart, and breathing speeding up to match our dreams. And why do we dream? Is perhaps all of life a dream?

What about this? Have some people's "out-of-body experiences" simply been a very convincing perception inside their brain? How valid can our arguments for various theories be if they go through the filter of our mind?

Many have said that "If I can see it, I'll believe it"...well if you "see" a magician make a lady disappear, did it really happen? If you think, by touching an extremely hot surface, that it is freezing cold, is it?

At times, I swing from absurdity of Dadaism to the complete opposite (whatever that is called). I know there are truths about God but His timing of measuring out these truths makes it hard to apply "if A then B"-type logic.

I think about things like this most all the time...really! Mostly when I am by myself, but sometimes and inconveniently, in the middle of doing other things, including a conversation! Even as I write this I am thinking of other topics. There are times that I feel like my brain in thinking about these things, is actually twisting back on itself for self-examination. I worry that one day my brain will get itself in a knot it can't get out of!

This probably isn't that last post I do on this subject but let me close with one more thought...

I sometimes worry that this line of thought is at odds with my faith in Jesus. I currently feel that I am covered by the verses in Proverbs, 1:5 and 18:15. While I get most information from the Internet, then from books. I welcome an open discussion on this so that I can acquire wise counsel.

Funny Videos

I found these links on CNNSI.com. They were just too hilarious not to pass on to you.

I am not sure if this horse racing video is real.. but still make me chuckle.

Being Richard

*doing something
"hey that would be good for my blog"
"eh...no one reads my blog"
"well it might be cool just to write about stuff so I can read it later"
*get in front of computer for my social networking time
*check hotmail
*update fantasy baseball team
*get distracted by funny, amazing, and silly
"my stuff isn't that interesting...people will think I'm weird since i want to post all this stream-of-consciousness stuff"
"ah well.. life is short.. people think i'm weird anyway.. and i want to be able to read this stuff when i am 60 to remember what i was thinking when i was 35...err 36... er 30-something."

p.s. listen to Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers... musically I find it amazing. The bass guitar is nonpareil.

Wii-diculous

As you can see, Richie had quite a set of games bowling. He had control of all four people. Using my character and his own, he bowled two games of 245! Look at all the strikes!

Web 2.0?

Lately i have been thinking of making the switch to Apple. I went to local Apple-like store and asked some questions. After that, and test driving the entry-level MacBook a bit, I came to the following conclusion.

Software determines the experience...not the hardware. Of course, a nice looking case and such help with aesthetics and a webcam that just "works" are nice.. but REALLY... I think people like Macs for the ease of use and the care taken in developing the interface.

PCs are much cheaper and, in my case, I have several old PCs that I can play with. So I've decided to focus on making my experience with my PCs better. I am thinking of a suite of software products that will give me that Apple-like zen that I have heard of.

My current list to try:
iGoogle
Blogger
Delicious
Picasa
Bloglines
Facebook

Two things stand out about this list for me. No Microsoft and all Web 2.0 stuff.

Anyway, I will post more on this as I delve into it.

Carson with one of his favorite Sunday School teachers, Mr. Matt from James River Assembly. This was taken at the "I Love America" celebration in Springfield, Missouri.

Here is a story that made me smile... an interesting story about two fourteen kids who bust a large corporation for lying about its Vitamin C content.