big night tonight guys. i’m very excited, because when i get off work i get to drive over the st. pete a see sister hazel perform live at jannus landing. i hope the weather holds up since its an outside venue. what a great way to kick off a holiday weekend.
there is a new wallpaper up in the “wallpaper” tab that i have been working on. it is inspired by a song called moving mountains by thrice. its an acoustic song. the i absolutely love the lyrics that the song is based around. they come from a biblical principal in 1 corinthians 13. the new international version says:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
that’s pretty powerful stuff. here is the audio to thrice’s moving mountains, and make sure you go up the the “wallpaper” tab and check out my new art. let me know if you use it, i’ll be curious to know.
hello my friends. the year is half over and so much has already occurred. i bought a house, i got my dream guitar, i saw the foo fighters live, i celebrated 2 years of marriage, i’ve made some great new friends and i’ve been through 4 different states for business trips. looking ahead throughout july i’ve noticed that my calendar doesn’t get any slower. in fact, i may be busier now than ever. so here’s the run down. tomorrow night i’m going to see sister hazel in st. pete. friday is the 4th of july, which means eating some kind of dead animal cooked over an open flame. next week will be insane in the office since i’ll be leaving on the 13th to go to new mexico. my company is selling an entire city, and i still haven’t figured out how it is going to work. i’ll be gone for a whole week. when i get back i get to play catch up at the office and at home. then, at the end of the month, we are having some out of town company for a few days.
what i have realized is that i need a vacation. i never knew just how precious this time was and how important it is. i’m really stressed at work, not because of work load or anything, just because the real estate market in general is down. i think we are going to spend a week at a cabin in georgia, for the 3rd week in september. it couldn’t come soon enough.
i’m pretty sure july is going to fly by. i hope it does.
so yesterday i had a friend of mine tell me, “you know mike, why don’t you design backgrounds for computers? there are a lot of them out there, i bet you could do some that are pretty cool.” i don’t know if that’s actually what he said word for word, but is was something like that. i became inspired last night and went to work. i’m going to start designing more wallpapers whenever something motivates me during my day. i will, however, at least have one for each new month, that way you can have a new calendar throughout the year. i have added a new tab at the top of this page called wallpapers in which you can download the art work for your desktop. i really hope you guys enjoy this new feature. make sure to pass it along to your friends if you like the work. also, if there is a cool design you would like to have custom done just drop me a line and i’ll work on it. let me know what you guys think of all this.
i finally got to really play my new guitar today at church, and man does that thing rock. so much so that i don’t think i would ever want to play a different brand of instruments. that being said, i’m selling my les paul. i’ll spare all the details of the guitar for those of you who might actually be interested in it, or in the market for one. its been a great guitar for me but i think i can finally let her go. so if you are interested leave me a comment or email me and i’ll tell you anything you want to know about it. there is also a possibility that even if you aren’t a local reader we can work out some shipping for it.
i’m also selling a hagstrom semi-hollow body guitar…
and a quiet flight surf board
let me know if you are intersted.
so i’ve been playing guitar now for about 13 years. ever since i first started playing i have lusted after owning a paul reed smith. trust me, i have owned a lot of guitars since i started but none have ever really satisfied me or given me the look/sound/feel that i have coveted. i have been watching a used prs guitar at the local guitar store for a while now. i have saved my money, sold some personal goods i don’t use/need/want anymore, and worked extra hours at work and finally had enough $ to get the guitar i have waited for for so long. its beautiful. it sounds amazing. i can’t wait to play it tomorrow at church. so here it is guys. have a look.
my wife had a moment of absolute genius last night around 9:30 pm. i was laying in bed and travis called. from the side of the room i hear a struggle with the pocket door that slides open and closed to the bathroom. i look over to the closed door and see a set of fingers sliding underneath as the door begins to shake. at this point, i put travis on hold, walk to the door and ask an easy question, “what’s wrong?” “i can’t get the door open. i’m trapped inside the bathroom,” a voice calls out to me from the other side. i grab the handle and sure enough it doesn’t slide open. i now ask a very important question.
“is
the
door
locked?”
“of course not. why would the door be locked?” then i hear the click. the beautiful, melodious, heavenly sound of the door unlocking. guess what guys. my wife locked herself in the bathroom. i don’t even know what to say.
i’m back guys and what a weekend i had. it was a pretty good trip all in all, but i’ll just fill you in on the really cool stuff and spare you the monotonous details. the drive up to tennessee was not as bad as i thought it was going to be. the tour bus is quite comfortable, and if you have to drive, that’s just about the best way to do it. with plush leather seats, full bathroom, stocked refrigerator and a satellite television with bose® theater system, it was almost an enjoyable 10 hour trip. that night for dinner, we stopped just south of atlanta and ate at joe’s crab shack. i must have eaten about a pound and a half of shrimp (coconut, parmesan crusted, and fried) and french fries. for an appetizer we got the great balls of fire, which were pretty amazing. they were crab cake balls stuffed with jalapenos, which were then battered and deep fried. back on the road, we turned on the tv and watched the longest yard. i liked it a lot, mainly because it helped pass the time on the road. we got in to our hotel in cleveland, tn about 10:45 that night. i crashed from our long drive and in preparation for the next morning.
i woke up saturday morning to the sound of my wake up call ringing through on the hotel room phone. 6:15 am. the plan was to meet in the lobby to grab breakfast at 7, and then head up the mountain to go white water rafting the ocoee river. i haven’t rafter in many years, so when i found out that the ocoee was the river of the 96 or 97 summer olympics, i got a little nervous. i figured if this was an olympic river, it must be pretty intense. after breakfast and a relatively short bus trip, we arrived at wild water rafting, where we geared up and hit the water. i had a blast. it was one of the most incredible 2 hours i have ever spent in nature. i can’t really even describe the rush you get while speeding through raging waters, inches away from being capsized. the 50 degree water aided the adrenaline too. here are a couple of pictures i took of the river with my camera phone.
below is a picture i took of the lower section of the river, which looks great for trout and bass fishing. its not the best picture because it was taken out of the bus window while driving back to the hotel.
when we got back to our hotel we had to get ready for the sale, the real reason i went on the trip to begin with. this is the first time i saw our surroundings in daylight. it was a great view, situated in the mountains. i snapped a couple of pictures and headed into the conference room to set up.
after the sale we packed up and drove several hours to nashville. once again, we checked into the hotel and crashed. i had a very early morning ahead of me.
sunday morning the phone in the hotel rang. another wake up call.
4
o’clock
a.m.
ouch. that’s a bit early for me guys, but we had to catch a 6am flight back into tampa. aside from multiple thunder storms we encountered in flight, the airplane ride was pretty painless. i think i slept for about a half an hour before the captain came over the intercom to let us know there might be some turbulence ahead. we weaved our was between two thunderstorms and landed on the runway. when i got back to my house i slept for about 5 hours.
all in all i had a pretty good trip. i’m really looking forward to the next time i get to go to a new place for work, but at the same time i’m really glad to be back. i’m also ready for a vacation.
this friday i get to travel again for business purposes. it should be a pretty interesting trip because i’ll be traveling on the private tour bus for this trip. we leave mid morning on friday and drive pretty much all day. the sale i’m going to is in cleveland, tn, and will be the first of its kind. we are auctioning property in tennessee, but the auctioneer will be in lakeland, fl. my job, if i choose to accept it, will be setting up a live video feed of the ballroom audience and sending it back to florida, while the florida person sends a live video feed of the auctioneer up to me. each of us will project the video feed so that it will seem as though everyone is in the same room at the same time. we tested it out yesterday and there is only about a half second a/v lag. not bad. kudos to me by the way. i’m the one who figured out the best and most efficient way to set this whole thing up.
saturday night, after the sale is over, we are going to pack up the bus again and drive a couple hours away to nashville where we will lodge for the night. i’m pretty disappointed about the timing of all these events. we will arrive in nashville between 10 and 11 pm, which means that i won’t even be able to walk around and visit the cool little guitar and music shops that are scattered about. sunday morning, a fellow associate and i will be heading via airplane back to florida. the flight is at 6 am. that means that we should be arriving at the airport around 4 or 4:30 am, which also means that we will probably be getting up around 3 am. do the math. that’s about 3 hours of sleep saturday night. our plane should arrive in tampa around 8:30 sunday morning so i won’t be playing guitar at church this weekend. i plan on taking a pretty good nap when i finally get back to my house.
if i do get a chance to walk around a little bit saturday night, and pull an all nighter, i’ll need some interesting places to go. so, if you’ve been to nashville, leave a comment and let me know what to do and where to go. i’d love your advice.
i have your rug. you know who you are. if you ever want to see it again in one piece, or feels its furry goodness under your bare feet, you will comply with all my demands. i need 2 tickets to disney world with a vip pass to the castle, a bottle of original dr. pepper, a pack of cherry twizzler bites, 2 bone-in rib eyes steaks, and home made banana pudding - the kind with individually torched banana slices on the top. if you do not meet my demands you will start receiving mail on a daily basis with pieces of your beloved carpet. there may also be red wine stains that will never wash out. you have 3 day, 15 hours, 41 minutes and 16…15…14…13 seconds.
