the most helpful post since the rss how-to
This may come as old news to some of you, but it is the most exciting thing I’ve learned since Planet Earth on Discovery Channel last Sunday.
As if Google hasn’t done enough cool things lately (Google Earth, Gmail, Forbes #1 Company to Work For, etc), they went ahead and stayed the course for cool things… and doing them…
For those of you with text messaging capabilities on your cell phone, go ahead and send “google” (466453) the text “living hope college station tx” and see what happens.
I used Living Hope because it’s a common thread that many of my readers have. If you want, you can text google something else. Like “chicken express college station tx“… or Layne’s. Sorry Mike.
the one about the piano
You are looking at a picture of my Christmas present. A keyboard and Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” songbook. This is a good combination. It would, of course, be a better combination if I were more able to read music than I am (it takes me the equivalent time as a kindergartner reading English, divided by two, to read music).
Remember the post about jugglers and excellence? Well I don’t know that I want to be excellent at the piano, but I certainly do want to be very good. It is too beautiful an instrument to ignore in my opinion. A couple years ago I was given a very fruitful private lesson on chord construction by one Brooke Brandon, and I’ve taken that lesson as far as I think I can. I’ve taught myself a lot of things (I think), and now I face the sad reality that I need lessons!
This isn’t sad because I’m being forced to swallow my pride and actually ask for help. Swallowing my pride is always good. It’s a sad thing because the going rate for piano lessons in this town is $1/minute. That would be all fine and good if you could get by on five minutes a week. Thirty minutes a week however quickly adds up to $120 a month… and that’s a lot for the guy who’s making, well, not a ton of money.
So, anyone know of a sweet lady that loves to help nice bearded boys learn the piano for cheap? I’ll mow her yard or something. Not to mention blessing her with my presence. That was prideful. Swallow.
set your tivo!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpDc4Knoqw]
I’m pretty sure I haven’t been this excited about any television event since Screech and Lisa actually kissed on Saved By The Bell. Believe me, this video is worth your 62 seconds, and if the documentary is half as good as the preview, then those 11 hours will be well worth your time too.
a little curveball
Man, there are about twenty different ways I could pitch this post to you, and I’ve opted, for my own sake, to just be direct. An opportunity for me to teach English at a Chinese University has come up, and I’m really thinking about taking it.
I went to China a couple years ago as you may recall (the very trip that birthed this blog), and loved it. Since returning to the States I’ve thought about going back and serving there again in some form or fashion, but I didn’t want to be dependant on raising money every time I went overseas. I wanted to be able to fund it myself (tent-maker style, ya know?) and now it seems I’ll have a chance to do just that.
I’m in the process of swapping paper work with the appropriate people and I’m still learning a lot about what this will look like but basically I’d be teaching for a year, with a salary and I’d be given a place to stay. Also, when my contract is up, they’d reimburse me for my plane ticket. Not bad.
So not only would this trip allow me to be Jesus to people who haven’t heard of him, it would also speed up my reaching the learn-another-language goal, and it would get me out of my so far terribly predictable and unexciting life. Thoughts?
you think you’re sneaky…
Keeping a blog updated regularly really isn’t hard, especially when you aren’t concerned about your posts being entertaining. What is hard however, is keeping up with a blog that is in some form or fashion, worth people’s time. In order to do that, you’re more or less forced to keep things entertaining, thought-provoking, humorous, things of that nature.
I’ll be the first to admit that the online diary for the masses (that’s the name of this blog) often fails at meeting any of those prerequisites for a healthy blog, which has, over the past few months, made me doubt whether or not I had a sizable readership. But, every time I let myself think that the only people who read my blog were the four people who post each time, my sources tell me that I have readers I’d never have even thought about having. Friends of friends. Siblings of friends. Total strangers. All of the above.
So, to you mystery readers, you “ghosts” as they say in the message board world, I’d like to offer you an invitation. Now is your time to shine. You yourself could be published on this ever-so-prestigious website. I invite you, I challenge you, I admonish you to post a comment to this entry. Show yourself. There’s no reason to hide. The other readers won’t tease you, I promise! They’re nice. I bet they’ll even post welcome messages to you. It’ll be like a virtual electronic happy time for everybody!
Go ahead. Do it. You think you’re exempt but you are certainly not my friend. Plus, rest assured that I know you who are regardless of the action you take at the end of the next sentence. I’ve heard of you reading this very blog at your home, workplace, and favorite local bistro… Show yourself.
super power
The other day conversation in the break room turned to the ever-popular topic of choosing for yourself a super power. Unwilling to compromise my creativity by answering with a typical “flying” or “being invisible,” I racked my brain to think of what extra-human ability I’d grace myself with. I decided I’d like to have the capacity to read extremely fast, while being able to retain all of what I read. How fast? Somewhere in the ballpark of reading all the books in my local Barnes in an hour.
This break room banter wouldn’t normally have made it to a blog entry (though I’m sure you’ve noticed the blog’s significant decline in excitement since graduation) had it not been for my very cool discovery on Wikipedia tonight. Wikibooks! More specifically, the Learn Chinese book. How cool is that?
I’m pretty sure the on my list of things to do before I leave for Heaven there lies an item called “Learn another language.” Note that I’m just pretty sure, I’m not entirely sold on it yet. If I were to pursue learning another language, I think I’d like it to be Chinese. Upon mastering the second tongue, I could instantly talk to a new third of the world’s population! So many new friends could be made. All thanks to Wikipedia. What a brilliant thing.
What are you going to learn? Share!
excellence
If you know me very well, you know that I love watching people do whatever it is in which they excel. I mean I love it. I love watching American Idol because it showcases people with beautiful voices singing songs that show their voices off. I love going to Broadway shows because those people are arguably the most talented people in America. I love watching almost any professional sport (especially the not-so-popular gymnastics) because those people are professional for a reason: they excel at what they do.
The other night I bit the proverbial bullet and bought a ticket to go see Corteo, one of Cirque du Soleil’s performances. Holy crap! That was probably the best $40 I’ve ever spent in my life. I cannot even begin to describe to you what an amazing show that was. It was hands down the most impressive thing any group of humans has ever done in person before my eyes. It was so awesome that it brought about the first ever taboo word to be used on my blog. (It was earlier in this paragraph if you missed it.) Take the picture above and raise it to the 13th power, and then you’ll get an idea as to how amazing that show was. A guy did a triple double off a teeter totter. Is that a joke?
Well all this beauty that unfolded before my very eyes (and ears for that matter… amazing live music) inevitably brought to mind my longing to be excellent at something. I think the reason I love watching people excel at things is that I excel at nothing. I’m slightly above average at a few things, and that’s about all I’ve got. There is certainly nothing that I can say I’m excellent at — or even that I’m becoming excellent at. It kinda stinks.
I don’t know how to go about fixing this problem, and I won’t try and figure it out with the remainder of this post because if it gets much longer, nobody will read it. Kinda like I do a lot of Brandon’s posts. So here’s to excellence, and people who possess the ever-desirable trait.
Oh, and if you’re in Dallas or Houston, you absolutely need to go see this performance. They’re in Dallas through the 11th, and then they’re off to Houston. Go!