Captain’s Corner

My mom just asked me this about one of the most iconic movie weapons of all time… The light saber

Repeat, we are GO on all systems.

So Monday morning we hit the ground running. We spent hours talking through the various failures and lacks of systems. We poured through manuals to see where we went wrong. We ran a full hour test transmission… only to still have problems. We went back to the drawing board - we thought through some things we dismissed… and we got ourselves together to try another transmission tonight.

Oh, Pastor Steve also bought us 9 weeks worth of testing by deciding to have the campus pastor preach at Firewheel this week and run the new series on a one week delay out at Firewheel - so we go through all the transmission stuff and then don’t use it - giving us 9 full run throughs to check and double check our systems and our hardware.

So, tonight… went amazing. Sure there were a few hiccups, but basically our hardware problems are ironed out. Now we just need to keep working our systems - checking for holes, setting parameters and transmission standards, and most of all, simplifying the system so that we can turn the whole thing over to our volunteers without completely wrecking them.

After last Saturday I just wanted to hang my head and cry… but this week, I feel great and I’m glad I’m part of a team that doesn’t look at failure as an excuse to throw blame or just toss our hands up in defeat, but rather we all came together and busted our butts to make sure that we learned from our mistakes and over came the problems we were dealing with. It was a long, hard week - but it was completely worth it!

So I updated to iPhone software 2.1 yesterday… And I don’t really care what other improvements it brought… Because battery life is GREATLY improved - I’m talking it wasn’t on the charger at all yesterday or last night and I still had half the battery left this morning! Which is a huge change from keeping it on the charger as much as possible just to make it through the day.

-Sent from my iPhone via the FREE Wordpress App

Metallica’s newest album is out… DEATH MAGNETIC. They fired Bob Rock - their producer on the Black Album through St. Anger… and went with Rick Rubin who has worked with U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Run D.M.C., Johnny Cash (he’s responsible for Johnny’s cover of NIN’s Hurt), Mick Jagger, Tom Petty… oh and Slayer, Danzig, Masters of Reality, and Wolfsbane (for those of you wondering if he’d done any Hard Rock/Heavy Metal).

Death Magnetic takes Metallica back to an earlier sound… stripped down and raw, and definitely away from the Nu Metal/”Hard Rock” sound of St. Anger - Metal from Metallica, who’da thunk it? Also, average song time… aproximately seven and a half minutes… Kirk is actually on this album and on it a lot!

So buy yourself some new Metallica today… you deserve it!

Oh, and here’s a little sneak peek….

I keep hearing people say this (including Cindy McCain) when they’re defending Sarah Palin’s lack of experience…

“It’s the closest point of America to Russia.”

How in the world does that equal foreign policy experience? Colbert put it in the best perspective by also saying that since Alaska has Mt. McKinley, America’s closest point to space, that she must also have space policy experience.

Just admit that she wasn’t chosen based on experience but by the fact that she isn’t mired in Washington Politics and can be an agent for change… What’s wrong with the RNC spin that they can’t turn that lemon into lemonade… BARACK OBAMA did when met with the same criticism…

For those having a hard time keeping up… it works like this:

No Experience = Agent of Change

Lots of Experience = Wise, Strong Leader

See how easy that was… and with none of the lame geographical experience qualifiers…

Me: Lilybeth, you’re acting like a baby.

LB: Uh-oooh

So I watched Rudy Guliani’s speech at the Republican National Convention tonight… he spent the whole time belittling and making fun of democrats, Obama, Hilary, and Biden as people… he barely touched issues and when he did he just spewed forth hateful (and often incorrect) rhetoric. He was absolutely the wrong thing for the RNC… they needed hope and futurism. They got unwitty and spiteful banter… and they all cheered for it.

For shame my former political party. For shame.

Now… when’s the Libertarian National Convention? I need a good dose of common sense.

So I was watching one of those “Did You Know” style countdowns… and one of the facts was:

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

At first glance this is a reasonable “fact”… despite this a good number of you reading this probably tried it.

BUT… it’s not IMPOSSIBLE.  It would be incredibly painful, but let’s face it… arms have been broken before… so have necks.  I would almost bet my house that someone, somewhere, has fallen off a roof, cliff, down a set of stairs, or just had a parachute not open and has landed in such a way that their mouth and their elbow were uncomfotably close.  In fact, I’d be almost as confident that in said predicament and the delirium that pain can cause that one of those people actually did lick their elbow.  Maybe just to prove the skeptics wrong…  I know I would.

So today I today I went to order the Metallica portion of Ozzfest via livemetallica.com.  While poking around to see what was new there, I noticed some shows available for free… wait, I take that back… I noticed ALOT of shows available for free… a lot of stuff with Cliff playing and even one with Dave Mustaine playing… they even refer to Four Horsemen as Mechanix (which Mustaine helped write and would release on Megadeth’s debut album as Mechanix).  I of course downloaded all of them.  See:

1. Metal played on cellos really does rock

2. There’s no such thing as being too close to the pyro (but once your hair catches on fire, it’s a good idea to take a break… get some water… sit a song or two out.)

3. Despite his age, Ozzy is A-Mazing. (So is King Diamond… who made a special appearance with Metallica)

4. Zakk Wylde is better.

5. Metallica is best.

6. My hair will likely be tangled for days - which is likely how long my neck will hurt, my ears will ring, and my voice will be hoarse.

7. Best of all… There are officially solos in Death Magnetic (Metallica’s new album).

So, this is how I feel today… Thunder Kiss ‘65.  Not necissarily the words of the song… but the general mood/attitude…

On presale today, and regular sale tomorrow are tickets to see the Black Crowes at the Palladium Ballroom here in Dallas… If anyone wants to go, buy tickets and let Ann and I know. It’s all general admission, so we can just meet up in line and enjoy the show together!

If you don’t know who the Black Crowes are, they’re the only great American classic rock band left… except they’re not really a classic rock band. Check out their most famous single and if you like what you hear, join us!

So, do you like musicals?  Well this is for you.  What’s that?  You don’t like musicals? Well… do you like comics?  Okay, then this is definitely for you!  Wait, you don’t like either?  Ummm… how ’bout this… do you like things that are funny?  Sure you do!  Who doesn’t?  Okay, well then you’re gonna love this!

Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog!

A friend of mine pointed out the fact that I completely missed this when it “aired” or “was published”… what the crap do you call things that are on the web for a while and then gone?  Someone needs to make a word for it…  Anyway, this was operationally viewable on the website for the past couple of weeks… but it’s gone now and you have to pay for it (or check out Brian’s post here.)  But I’m gonna buy it because Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly/Serenity) is awesome, as is Neil Patrick Harris (those of us who are old enough will always call him Doogie).   So… enjoy the comedic Supervillian Musical (which we all agree there are too few of)…Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog!

Ummm… also, you must be this tall to ride this ride… wait, that won’t work online… You probably should not be a baby or small child and watch this… But it’s got no swearing… so that’s good.

… and I mean HATE, vein popping out on my forehead straight up HATE…

1. When someone comes to me with a problem and I tell them how to fix it, and they ignore me. Now, I’m not talking about some kind of grey area, morality type problem or something someone would like advice for… I’m talking about my area of expertise, there’s a problem with getting a camera working or a piece of software is wonky… I tell them what’s wrong and how to fix the problem and they just deal with whatever it is not working because they’re too lazy to fix it… That bugs the ever loving snot out of me… especially if I have to clean up the mess.

2. When I give a direction - an order if you will - in regards to something I have authority over, and it gets ignored. Now I don’t have authority over much in this world, and I’m okay with that. But when it comes down to one of the few things I have been placed in charge of and I don’t give options when I hand out instructions… there’s usually a good reason… Once again, this is only exacerbated by the fact that I usually end up cleaning up that mess too.

Aren’t you guys proud of me?? I just vented without swearing once!