RRRantings

Well well well, look who's back

2007-09-22T23:27:00.001-06:00

After a two year leave of absence I am blogging here again...same format and rules apply...just my thoughts and musings see you around.

2005-09-22T11:29:00.000-06:00

I have been doing most of my blogging over at my Xanga site. Go there NOW!!!

Oh Hey.......

2005-06-29T21:04:00.000-06:00

If you want to listen to my obsession that is Launchcast Radio. Just go here and then click on the orange ear phone icon in the "About my station" box (Listen to my Radio Station: (icon) therrrant). Then it will take you to the sign in page where you log in to Yahoo (you need a Yahoo!ID to listen to anything on Launch). Then it will play my station!!

2005-06-20T15:24:00.000-06:00

Hey if you haven't done it yet sign my guestbook. It is the little icon with the pen on it on the side panel. Also I have a message board so if ya want to discuss anything that is the place to do it.

A new obsession

2005-06-15T00:28:00.000-06:00

I have a new on-line obsession....Launch Radio. If you have a yahoo account you can create your own Customized radio station. You do it by picking genres and subgenres, band/artists, albums, and songs that you are into. Then they will play random songs according to your choices of genres et al. and as they paly you can rate the Artist, the album and the song on a scale from 0-5 0 meaning never play it again to love it (5). then music starts showing up according to where it ranks on you lists aswell as random stuff. So the obsession comes in finding artists and ranking them and all their stuff and making your Radio station truly yours. I have been annoying my wife greatly as everytime she turns around I am on-line editing my paly-list. I will type in a band/artist I enjoy and then rate it. Next I go to the "similar artist" file and rate some of the ones I know from there I follow the link to similar artists of those ones and on and on it goes. Then I listen to some artists I have heard about but have never heard. and then the cycle starts all over again.
Then there is this little thing called "moods" where you can have playlists that are done according to the moods you are in (once again you create the "mood" and what genres et al are included). But this is part of the pay portion of Launch cast so sucks to that. Vive le Free!!!!

I have been doing this radio thing for days now, I even put off doing any blogging and had to do this in two parts because of it. I can't seem to e-mail anyone (and man I have to do that) but I sure can rate the hell out of my radio station. All this has brought to mind an idea that has been rolling around now for a couple months, it would be a way for me to put my obsession with music to good use...start a label. I know absolutely nothing about the way it would work or how we would be different from anyone elese out there but hey gimme some time to figure it all out and this too will be able to be added to the list of really good deas that I have no time/money to work on. Oh well I am young and it could still happen blah blah blah...actually somewhere deep inside I believe that those words are true but the cynicism that often plagues those my age just won't let me hope. I so dislike how cynical I have become. (Remind me to share some of my thoughts on cynicism vs. irony al a Douglas Coupland).

sorry about that little tangent but sometimes a mood just hits ya know?

while I have been writing this I have gone to maketradefair.org and searched the site and have been reminded how much navel-gazing I do and how little thought I give to the oppressed around the world and how I can help them. I also watched The Hour and was deeply saddened to hear of a two year old that was shot by those who took many children hostage from a school in Cambodia because he was crying too much during the hostage taking. Like what the eff!!!!! The boy was TWO!!!!!! killing, violence, war and the like bother me enough but when it involves children it goes beyond upsetting. Children should never have to deal with any of this stuff. Not here in Canada or the US or "over there" in any part of the world. I grow weary of seeing children being made to pay for the "sins of their fathers". I grow antsy for the time when the Kingdom of God will rule on earth as it does in Heaven and there will be peace. Having spent the better part of two years working with children in some shitty situations and seeing their innocence attacked and violated but also seeing that same innocence still trying to hang on I know that as a follower of Christ I am honor and duty bound to help those children and woe unto me if I don't. That children are made to be our examples compells us to act in an attempt to create a world where children are allowed to live freely and simply as children, not as slaves to fear and hate and greed.

Wow sorry again for hijacking my own light hearted blog entry but this is and other related topics just can't be ignored and are imoprtant to me and as such will appear many more times in the future....but I promise that I will try to give better warning, I will try to not to do too many stream-of-conciousness-like rants and I will always mix it up with many topics from the inane to the serious, from the dry to the witty....I won't depress you all the time.

Ps be on the look out for a new heading in my links "social Activism" where I will have as it states sites, blogs, etc. whose focus is on "Social Activism"

The Hour

2005-06-09T23:17:00.000-06:00

Hey there is this really amazing show on CBC Newsworld called The Hour: with George Stroumboulopoulos, and is hosted by a guy named, well, George Stroumboulopoulos. George used to be a VJ on Much Music (and a damn good one I might add) and "as producer and host of The Punk Show, host of The NewMusic, LOUD and MuchNews". He was asked to host a segment on Tommy Douglas during CBC's Greatest Canadian Ever show and wouldn't you know it Tommy won the polls and was crowned The Greatest Canadian, George was given a show and CBC was blessed with a hit.
Now I don't know if you all could figure it out but it is a news type show (I guess they call it a variety news show or something) and it is incredible and the reasons the show is so incredible are varied such as things like the fact that he has regular contributers as well as other guests who come from all sides of the political spectrum (he also gives them chances to answer or state their view even if he doesn't agreee with them...take that O'Riely). Or all of the pop-culture references and stories. Or because he does a show geared for 20-30 somethings that deals with intense topics, actual news and does it in a way that treats us like we have a brain and may care about more than the latest hollywood gossip. He does all these stories in short-form and then does a few stories in depth and then if the story requires some background to understand it he does what is called the set up which is a breif history and then it leads into the story.

Anyway I love it and if you get a chance to see it do...you will become addicted for sure.
http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/

Alright all my peoples

2005-06-07T22:20:00.000-06:00

...or should I say people since mike I am sure is the only one still checking anything around this ghost town. Well this ghost town is about to be populated again. The surrounding villages and their people let out a joyous cry but then began to doubt the mayor of rrrantville as such promises had been made before but died out just like all the buffalo around them. No no, the mayor insists, it is true for I am online at home and no longer will I be forced to be thoughtful and creative on schedule or within small perameters of time (like breaks at work). Now rejoice for the sweet sound of rain is wiping away the memory of this drought.

I AM A DORK

2005-02-07T10:38:00.000-06:00

I was thinking yesterday about things and I kept coming back to one thing why is it so much easier to get fat then in shape. I am somewhat overweight (not massive or anything) and now I am in the place where I am tired of it and I want to be in shape but damn....all the work that is required. I have never been an overly disciplined guy and it has frustrated me time and again. It has kept me from doing things that I know I could do better or things that I should be able to accomplish. And once again it has me screwed. I want to be inshape for various reasons like for my wife and son, for myself and the way I feel (both emotionally and physically) and because I know that God did not intend for my body to be this way. But when that Big Gulp and ___(fill in the blank with some unhealthy food choice) are calling my name I forget all about that and boom I go with it, only to regret it later.

Having read that it may sound like I really don't want to get healthy but I really do it's just that like many things in my world I have a hard time moving it from the desire stage to actually doing it. I have read the books (Dr. Phil would call me an emotional eater, he'd be right) and have been very excited about the methods in them but when it comes time to do it I just can't seem to brak the shitty tradition of eating crap. I have joined the gym and been very excited about it...only not to go. Part of the gym thing is just schedualing time properly which requires some discipline (and you know how well I do with that) and part of it is the motivation to read and write and watch TV and spend time with friends and my wife and son is so much stronger then going to the gym only to be reminded that I am SOOOOO out of shape.

Well I don't really know how to end a post like this so I will just end it.

my friend mike

2004-12-30T22:13:00.000-06:00

My friend Mike is having or rather has had surgery and I would like anyone who reads this to pray for a speedy recovery and encouragement for him....that's all for now

2004-12-25T21:58:00.000-06:00

I trust you had a great christmas Day and will have an amazing New Year in 2005. As I said before, Gavin just turned two on the 18th and opened a schwack of presents and then this morning he got to open more but the coolest part about children is when they are innocent to the whole commercialization of things. This morning he woke up and we said "Merry Christmas Gavin" and he grabbed his hands and got all excited and ssaid "merry pipsmas mommy, merry pipsmas daddy." then he paused and said in a super loud voice, "MERRY PIPSMAS EVERYBODY.....YAYYYYYYY!!!" And he has given everyone here (me, LoraLee, her mom and sister) christmas presents all day, which are big hugs. He says "have a pipsmas present" and then runs over and gives a huge hug. He has also been singing "oh pipsmas tree" and "jinden bell" (his version of oh christmas tree and jingle bells) all day. What a blessing to be reminded of the simple joys of christmas. Peace to all of you and Love from all the MacMillans

Hmmmmm

2004-12-20T10:28:00.000-06:00

Welllllll, it has been forever since I have entered anything for real. It's not that I haven't tried, really I have but because I am relegated to writing when I am at school or at my mother-in-laws (no home computer) I am not able to always write when the spirit moves. I have often sat down to write but have had verbal constipation and now have many half finished blog journal entries. They will all be finished in due time. However with Christmas fast aproaching I wanted to spread some Holiday cheer....but I can't. I am not in the Christmas Spirit and I have tried but it is not really there. Maybe it is because I am still at work and my holidays are not starting soon enough or maybe it's because my friends go to movies, like Oceans 12, without me (just kidding), but I can't get into the mood.

One thing I could get into was my son's birthday which was on saturday. It was alot of fun and he got a whole schwack of presents and was thoroughly spoiled by people like his Uncle Mike and Aunty Candi. He had a lot of fun except when he was overwhelmed while opening gifts. He just stopped looked around and realized that everyone was staring at him. He then put down the gift he was opening and without a whimper or sound he just turned and ran into our bed room and buried his face in the bed. He agreed to come out and finish as long as Daddy sat with him.

Now that he is two it is like he has decided to start talking in full and complete sentences. Not that he didn't before but they are becoming more frequent and more grammatically correct. Like this morning, LoraLee has to work and I do too so my mom comes over to babysit and Gavin wakes up and comes out of the bedroom and looks at her and says, "Gramma Deedee is it cold outside?". Like what the???? He has been doing that tons over the last week just saying more and more words, more and more clearly and I DON"T LIKE IT. I just want him to stay a munch for a while longer. His favorite song right now is Vertigo by U2 and he always asks to listen to it or watch the video of it in his muncie way, "Bono singing on there?" usually followed by Gavin singing "I can feel. I can feeeeelll. YA ya ya ya" and then mummbling words while singing more of the tune. All of this is accompanied by dancing and guitar playing. The other night after he was asleep I was thinking about all of this and it made me sad and I started to cry. It just felt like he was growing up so quickly(I mean his obsession with Vertigo is insane) and I had to go watch him sleep for a while and reassure my self that he is still a babe. Wow am I a sap or what. I'm just a dad I guess.

Well I just saved this and went for lunch and came back suddenly in a warm Holiday-like mood. Weird. I'm not complaining it was just unexpected. Actually there is one commercial that puts me in the mood only for the length of the commercial but it is the Barnes and Nobles commercial where the people are quoting from different Christmas movies and it ends with that dude quoting It's A Wonderful Life. I love that and it puts me in the mood at least for that long. Well I don't know if it was the lunch our principal made us or the blowy wintery weather that has made it seem more like Christmas but here I am full of love for all mankind and all those other cliches. Yeah for me!

Shoot I had something deep and profound that would impact everyone who read it and would single-handedly bring about world peace but I'll be darned if I can remember it.

Until next time (which will hopefully be soon)

A Prayer Request

2004-12-02T22:02:00.000-06:00

Hey I don't know if anybody still checks or not since it has been a month since I posted, but if you do and you pray please pray for my friends dad and the whole family. His dad found out that he has cancer just this last week and so they need our prayers. If you do check this and pray please just leave a comment to let me know I would appreciate it.

Thank God for grace.

2004-11-08T01:57:00.000-06:00

I really make my self sick. This isn't a self-flaggellating thing it is just an honest observation. I was made aware of my sinful and proud nature this last week. Someone told me that the dude from TBN (Trinity Broadcast Network) was facing some allegations regarding sexual misconduct. He wasn't sure who it was or what the details were for sure so I checked it out and sure enough Paul Crouch the guy who started TBN was facing some allegations of homosexual misconduct. Now my first thoughts were pleasure that Paul was caught doing something bad and annoyance at how much crap they shovel to cover up/ avoid disscussion of it (ie: the accuser is possed/druggy/greedy. or this is a ploy by Satan to bring them downetc.). I don't care to much for the whole of TBN and it's programming, I just have issues with the whole prosperity gospel/psychotic charasmatic thingy (it just doesn't wash scripturally), so needless to say that was influencing my thoughts. I thought about how much damage their weirdness (just check it out) has done regarding the view of Christians from outside the bubble and how they are always "professing" their greatness and how they are always grubbing for money and it pissed me off and that is when I let my self take a sick pleasure in their hardships.
Now no sooner did I think this stuff then the Holy Spirit started to open my eyes to this very fact that I was taking pleasure in their pain and that is probably farther from Jesus then any of my issues with them. I realized that this (their scandal) doesn't help the cause of Christ much either, nor do all the snide comments from other Christians that were posted on various web sites ranging from well read(LA Times) to not. I was faced with the fact that the same God who persues me with boundless love and grace does so for them and if he can forgive my duplicity and hypocrisy then he can and does forvie them too. I also knew in my heart that what I really needed to do for them was pray and not just moan and bitch.

So that is why I make my self sick, I just can never believe how easily I am duped into judgmental thoughts and behaviour and just how short the roots of my own worldview and theology are. Because no matter what I think of Paul and his purple or pink haired wife the following quotes from Paul applys to them (and all those other jerks I can't stand :))

2 Corinthians 13:14May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--

A fix-it

2004-11-01T09:00:00.000-06:00

I found the actual quote from C.S. Lewis I used two blog previous. Here it is "We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot understand what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

I love that quote and didn't want to misrepresent it.

My halloween costume

2004-10-29T11:18:00.000-06:00

I work in early Elementry and so halloweeen is a lot of fun and I love that I get to dress up too. Last year I was a bowl of M&M's I attached multicolor balloons to a shirt and wrapped it in Saran Wrap. This year I am a Big Gulp. My job can be so fun!!!!

Anyone...anyone...Bueller, Beuller

2004-10-29T10:35:00.000-06:00

Just want to say I know that last post was long and disjointed, kind of stream-of-consciousness or internet like(you know start on one thing and when you are done surfing you are somewhere completely different) and so if you don't end up reading it that's ok. I have so much rolling around in that noggin of mine and sometime I just have to get it out and it so happens this is a great forum to get it out. So there may be a few long and winding roads that lead to your door....so please have some grace. Oh and if you do read these and you have anything to add or want to say something please comment. Also sign my guestbook and put yourself on my map.

2004-10-28T20:23:00.000-06:00

So I have been reading a lot about how God created us to have the desire to belong and to have something outside of ourselves validate us and of course that something is Him. None of this is really new to me but seeing how I am a slow learner when it comes to God I still need to hear it. I realized that all my attempts to belong, to fit in, to be cool (I mean really who determines cool...Besides Miles Davis) et al. were not wrong in and of themselves it is just what I was desiring wasn't quite right, my aim was off. It is like C.S. Lewis writes, "we are half hearted creatures fooling about with sex and drink...our desires are not to great they are too small"(I don't know if that was word for word but you get it). The smaller catechism of Westminster abbey says "what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever." This seems to me to be the cry of everyone that has ever lived.

Unfortunately not everyone knows what their souls are weeping for, so they attempt to fill it with relationships of all sorts, books, movies music, endless drivel about the lives of celebrities(celebrity..such a strange phenomenon). I would like to tell you that once you have discovered a God who always has his arms open and pursues you like a person crazed with love and has infinite grace and kindness for you that all of those other things would pass away in importance. I would like to tell you that when God has revealed himself as a being who is intimately aware of every detail of your existence and yet is still gentle and non-manipulative in His attempts to build a friendship with you that things like coolness and celebrity would not matter as much. I would like to tell you that but it isn't all true.
Christians create their own celebrities and hierarchy of coolness and I am talking about myself here. Christians battle with each other and with those not like us because it adds to our status in our particular group, often in ways that go unnoticed by the ones doing it. And the reason I believe this is, is because We have failed to really let the truth of what God has done and who he is permeate to our hearts. We have failed to work on our friendship with God. We have failed to see God as a being with emotions and feelings and as a lover.

Now not all of this is a bad thing. In the book I was reading the writer pointed out that even though God and Adam were on a first name basis with each other and were tight, Adam was still lonely. This is really cool because it tells me that even in a state of perfection and a face to face relationship with God that it wasn't complete, there had to be more. We needed companionship (I believe this means Platonic and romantic) we were created for it. God himself shows it by his own essence (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). And that makes me feel less stupid in how much stock I put in friendship, I value it highly and it is a sacred thing to me. I also as I said earlier realized that the most important relationship is mine with God and that if my relationship with Him is disfunctional then my relationships with anyone else will be too. After Adam and Eve screwed it up the world turned to crap and relations between people became mired in it. Mankind had a disfuntional relationship. This is important to realize when you work in the field I do. My friend Mike and I were saying that we have heard things, because of our line of work, about the darkness of mankind that will forever scar our psyche and it is all because we are disfunctional in our Relationship. I attended a conference regarding children who are behaviorally challenged and we went through some theories and all of them were attempts to understand how to reconcile man to each other and all of them boiled down to healthy relationships. One presenter had a study that showed that if a child doesn't receive love and nurturing in a consistent fashion within the first six months of their lives they will have a lifetime of struggling to maintain any relationship and that this is often a precursor to Anti-social Personality Disorder (formerly known as Pschopathy). And it hit me like a ton of bricks, this importance of relationship and I began to understand why we are called to become Ministers of reconciliation. We need to reconcile man to God and then mans relationship with himself and others will make more sense.

The other reason this isn't such a bad thing, the whole failing to get it thing, is because this whole thing is a journey. I went hitch hiking many a year ago and I had the chance to see and experience some of the incredible nature of God but I was focused on getting to my destination and would often lose sight of the fact that I was walking down the highway through the mountains, seeing little brooks and streams, or through the prairies and seeing the wind move the grasses like a velvet sheet and that I could hear the breeze throughout the trees; all these things could not be experienced from a car and if God had given me non-stop rides then I would not have been forced to stop and experience and enjoy. Failing allows us to do just that it allows us to stop, experience God's love and grace and mercy and enjoy it. Failing allows us to see who we truly are and the beauty of others. Failing allows us to see the beauty in harsh circumstances and say "I count it all joy..." I love the title of a CD by Joy Electric called Five Stars for Failure. When I begin to understand this I begin to understand the paradoxical nature of Jesus and things he said. I begin to realize that I am most useful to God when I am myself failings and all.

Something I read

2004-10-27T15:43:00.000-06:00

Some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual...There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselvesin existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing. And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform.
-Thomas Merton

A rant

2004-10-18T01:15:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking about it and I know what bugs me about Avril Lavigne and Ashlee Simpson. It is not just that they call themselves punk and aren't , it's that they push or have pushed that label so ceremoniously and religiously and aren't. If they were just honest and said they were girl pop/rock stuff or even better yet just did what they do and let the music stand for itself I don't think they would bother me as much. Like Avril's boyfriends band they don't run around saying "we are punk grrrrr" . Sure they are labeled that by music critics (like it or not) but they just did the music. With both of those girls it is a label that is just so obviously used to separate themselves. When Avril came out she wanted to make sure she wasn't lumped in with all the other girls so.... "I am a punk grrrrr.." and released horrid pseudo-punk songs about SK8er Boi's ad nauseum. Some of her new stuff is decent but so removed from punk and so cozy with other pop. Ashlee wanted to be distanced from her sister and the quickest way "I am punk grrrr...." and anyone listening knows this is quasi-rock and if she so doesn't want to be in her sisters shadow then why always bring her up if the interviewer doesn't.
There got that out

Ann Coulter Watta jerk

2004-10-17T13:43:00.000-06:00

I was watching this show on CBC Newsworld called Face to Face which is basically just a one on one style interview show usually dealing with politics. The interviewee this time round was a woman named Ann Coulter. I don't know if any of you are familiar with her but she is a Conservitive pundit/columnist/author, and the best way I could describe her is a more attractive Rush Limbaugh. Anyway she was being interviewed by the host and she was just rude. CBC is a bit of a left leanning media group, but let's face it, even our Conservitives here in Canada are often more left of center than some of the liberals in the States. I digress, since it was the CBC it was obvious that might cause some sparks but the host was being calm and asking fairly intellegent questions based on studies and such and she would just cut him off or mock the studies ("That's just a stupid study....what study is that anyway...well what ever it's stupid....") as long as what he said didn't reflect her veipoint. Then she has the audacity to say she is fair and unbiased. Ha! She had these conspiricy theories that made no sense and then she did it. She made my blood boil SHE MOCKED CANADA. She said"What happened to you guys what happend to Canada. You used to be so cool and now you are like a bunch of old people. You used to do things....send troops to Vietnam, why not....now ....nothing but trouble from you guys." The host said "Well we have troops in Afganistan keep ing the peace (quotes the number) and in fact four of our troops were killed when an American bomb dropped on them" The whole time he is saying this she is just repeating "Nothing but trouble...must be the french influence." And when he said that about the bomb she just kinda snorted and said with her body language "whatever". Watta Jerk.

Guilty as charged... the post that was never meant to be

2004-10-13T10:33:00.000-06:00

Ok This is the last and I mean last time I am going to attempt this post. This will be like number 5 or 6 and frankly I am sick of it. It has been erased everytime I have done it so you better FREAKIN ENJOY THIS PEOPLE.
So here is a list of sorts of some guilty pleasure music.

Queen Makers of such songs as "We will rock you" and "We are the champions" and that rhapsody one (you know the scene from Waynes World). There are some who would argue my inclusion of them on a guilty pleasure list (ie Bobbie, the teacher I work with) but I feel a certain amount of embarrassment at the amount of pleasure I derive from listening to them. Now I don't know if it is Freddies voice or the orchestration or simply the grandiosseness(is that even a word??) of it all but when I hear them it just moves me to sing along and just rock out (the aforementioned scene from Waynes world.....not a stretch).

Billy Joel now I don't know what to say here. The man can just do so many styles of music so convincingly and I love that. Plus it just releases the inner geek trying to get out. I have my wife to thank for encouraging and expanding this enjoyment

Some of the girl pop(Hilary Duff Britney etc.) Say what you will but some of this music is just darn catchy. Don't get me wrong this isn't a hands down love of all things "girl pop" or anything, I'm only saying some songs. It's just fun, ya know. Whatever.......you guys know that I'm right. Admit it You catch yourself singing along.

Some of the 80's hair band stuff. For example Stryper, Poison, Bon Jovi, etc. The heavy emphasis here is on SOME. There is great joy to be found in just rocking out and quite often this works out well with the genre in question. I guess the rising popularity of bands like The Darkness and Velvet Revolver proves my point and is my justification. Now please understand this is not an endorsement of the clothing/fashion statements of said genre because really it was gross.

The next one is tied to the last the POWER BALLAD ("Bed of Roses, November Rain", "Every Rose". yadayadayada.). The power ballad is the mother of all ballads and was not contained by 80's hair metal but has continued right on into today. But the bulk of them were found in the 80's by such people as the aforementioned hair bands but also by groups like, Chicago, and Boston, and Toto. So just sit back close your eyes and fall in love...with the power ballad.

Last and not least is Sir Elton John. I can hear the outrage of some with the fact that I have him here on this list (Mike I am looking at you) but I just can't help feeling silly liking him. There really is nothing to say here either you feel him or you don't. I mean it's not like he's Rod Stewart.

2004-10-08T13:55:00.000-06:00

So I was planning on making a list of guilty pleasure cds/songs as my next blog, however due to an unfortunate series of events it will have to wait. You see my fellow rrrantlings my son got very sick last night and threw up all over his bed right at bed time. We bathed him brushed his teethand gave him some water and easily digested baby food. About 15 minutes later it came out with a violence unseen in these parts of the world. This started a chain of events which went like so..... Any liquid in his tummy came out 10 mins. or so after ingesting it then when nothing was there it tried to come out too. In all Gavin was heaving and wretching most disturbingly. So we went to Emerg. While we were there the did all these things to Gavin that really upset him(needles and the like) and everytime it happened right as he was drifting off to sleep. They discovered that Gavin in deed has a virual infection otherwise known as a flu. To top it off we were there from midnight until 6:45 am and worked at 830 am ouch. Things like that really test what I wrote about the boy. Well next blog will be the aforementioned guilty pleasures among other things I am sure but right now I need sleed er I mean sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppppppppppp *er ah* Goodnight

2004-10-07T21:13:00.000-06:00

2004-10-06T10:28:00.000-06:00

I just got the new Green Day cd and I gotta tell ya, it freaking rocks. It is one of the best Cd's I have purchased in a while. It is just a good straight up rocker, not to heavy on the punk stuff (not that that's bad) just lots of punk tinted rock. It tells the story of a boy who grows weary of life where he is and decides to hit the road with his girl. He soon realizes life doesn't get better by running away, maybe it does at first but after a while things tend to fall apart if you don't deal with you. There are very few if any songs that fade out and most if not all actually transition into one another with no break creating a strong sense of a story/rock opera. In fact word is that they are making a movie based on the cd a la Pinball wizard (tommy) by the Who. Keeping with that theme there are a few songs that go well beyond the 7 min mark using different movements(as seen in Classical music) to break it up. Very cool. Green Day seem to have really come into their elemnet with thid disc.
Also check out Velvet Revolver for some guilty pleasure music. They totally sound like Gun N' Roses meets Stone Temple Pilots. Hmmmmm.... wonder why. But it is so fun to rock out to.

On a different completely unrelated note I am absolutly in love with my son. Having a child changes so much about ones perspective on living and introduces such a different kind of love into ones life. It doesn't diminish the love I have for my wife nor is it more important then the love I have for her or my friends or my students, its just different. It consumes you but not in a way that puppy love does, it is more like you think about your child and all the ways you want to make sure they have the best life possible and how you can further that or hinder it. You also find yourself being reminded of them in many things in everyday life.

The other week I was home from work sick and Gavin was asking LoraLee (my wife) "Daddy?" over and over so she said "In the bedroom" and waltzes in saying "Daddy? Daddy?" Upon seeing me he says "I love you" only in his ways it's " i wupfv woo" and then walks out. I started to cry that was the first time he ever said it without any prompts. On Sunday he was playing a game while I was getting ready for church that consisted of running up and hugging me . Or sometimes when he sleeps he looks so sweet and angelic and squeezable that it is hard to not go in and pick him up and hug him and hug him and hug him. He also loves cuddles especially with both Mommy and Daddy, he puts out both arms and smiles and says "Nuggle Hamily (trans. snuggles Family). He also loves to cuddle with his aunty gradmas and his Uncle Mike. Then there are the ways he says things which I will leave for another time. While these in and of themselves are sweet they in no way can explain the way or the how I can love him as much as I do.

Well if that wasn't disjointed I don't what is but those are the two things on my mind today. Tune in next time when you will hear me say.....

2004-10-01T10:41:00.000-06:00

Well well well I guess I should start by introducing myself, My name is Kimbal and I am married to LoraLee. We have one boy named Gavin who is almost 2 years old. I work as a T.A. with kids who have special needs. I love music and movies and books so these things will make it into my posts very often. My freind Mike has a kick ass blog at www.dublinsomeday.blogpot.com and I highly suggest ou go there. Like I said at the outset of my blog this will bassically be my thoughts so sometimes they will be inane like this

Ahemm.. I am ready to begin

2004-09-30T01:58:00.000-06:00

Hello this is my blog . Well duh obviously.... Ummm it will more or less be an outlet for my head space and therefore disjointed and erratic, given to fits of passion and outcries, otherwise known as rants... hence the name. Posts won't always be regular sometimes it may be days between and sometimes hours just whenever I get a moment but they will all be immensely rewarding and worth the read...or not. Anyway welcome