Until we meet again…

I know many people have been frustrated by their inability to view my blog.  I stopped showing it for a time while I could consider its fate.

I am done writing on this blog until further notice.

I’m not even sure what that means, really.

All I know is I don’t have access to internet, don’t have time, and honestly, I don’t have the desire to write right now.  Thus, I’m saying goodbye for the time being.

I would like to thank everyone who has follow my blog(s) for the last 4.5 years.

So, farewell and good luck, until we meet again…

POWERAGE

Wal-mart will soon be selling AC/DC’s new CD, “Black Ice” exclusively.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, but nonetheless, in preparation for this, Wal-mart has a new live DVD, “No Bull” featuring footage from the band’s tour in 1996.  I doubt I’ll pick it up, but as a fan you’re always interested, and maybe the best thing about it is that Wal-mart – FINALLY – has almost every AC/DC CD in stock!

I kid you not, every time I go into Wal-mart (well almost every) I look to see if “Powerage” is in.  Powerage was a album made in 78.  It was the first album to feature Cliff Williams on bass, and was their last album before they reached HUGE worldwide fame with “Highway to Hell” in 79′.

It is also my favorite album by AC/DC.  So I was pretty damn geeked to see it (finally) at Wal-mart this week – and for 7.00$ I nabbed it up!  (As I’m writing this I’m wondering why it is that I didn’t grab a couple others that I’m missing…??  Oh yeah, the “4,2,1″ reason: 4 kids, 2 dogs, 1 mortage!  LOL!)

As a huge fan, I have owned all of their CD’s through 1992.  I recently burned “Stiff Upper Lip”, so I have some catching up to do.

Anyway, with Black & Black, Highway to Hell, Razor’s Edge, etc, how can I say “Powerage” is my favorite?

Simple: I LOVE bluezrock and Powerage is probably their best b-rock effort to date.

You can sample some of it’s greatness here.

Album Tracks:

Rock n’ Roll Damnation

Down Payment Blues

Gimme a Bullet (to bite on)

Riff Raff

Sin City

What’s Next to the Moon

Gone Shootin

Up To My Neck In You

Kick In the Teeth

If you’re even slightly a AC/DC fan you should check out this CD.  It’ my favorite.  You can not go wrong with this CD.

And the number one song in the last 50 years is…

The Twist, by Chubby Checker.  Seriously.  You can read it for yourself here.

August…4 years ago I began to blog

Yup, 4 years ago I began this blog.

What  has August held for me over the last four years…

August 07′:

- Adultery

- Justice

August 06′

- Lots of church planting stuff cause I was in the middle of The Prodigal Project

August 05′

- Bloody Sunday

- Dirty Little Secret

- Silklantern Pictures (anyone remember Silklantern???)

August 04′

- The post that started it all…

Update: Can’t Write

For some reason every time I try to write something on here it wont go through.  I don’t know if it is the work computer…?

Anyway, from the library I am able to go to wordpress.com, login, write, and do all the dashboard stuff I want, but view my site?  Nooo…

So, I just wanted everyone to know that I’m still around, somewhere.

Laura is due in 13 days…*cue Eye of the Tiger theme music*

We are spending our time getting everything ready.  Our kids are gone this week, which will give us more time to get our collective house in order. 

I just turned 34 last week.  Fun.  Laura and the kids got me this sweet AC/DC DVD collection, to go with our new surround sound!  My mom got me a gift card to Home Depot to buy a chain saw and whatever else I needed.  Greatness!

Had a fun Father’s Day last night.  Got out of work at 3 instead of 4 (sweet).  Laura was off (she usually works) and I picked up the kids and we went out for ice cream and China One buffet.  Scary enough, I saw about 10 people that I had served at Ponderosa earlier that day eating Chinesse buffet!  Pack it on, boyie!  Josh and I battled it out on PlayStation and we watched some Lakers/Celtics game 5 (but seriously, who cares about this series…I just want to see it end), and then Laura and I watched The Bucket List (she got it for me for Father’s Day along a book called “The Last Lecture”).  The Bucket List was HILARIOUS and well worth watching.

So anyway, hopefully whatever is messing with me being able to take care of business here will clear up and I’ll be able to post more often.

Big Guns

Hey, can we have our next poker tourney be a “Diaper” game?

I wanted to have a diaper game to help fund my new son’s feckle fettish. What do you guys think about having the tourney game as usual, but having everyone bring a pack of diapers to help celebrate my son’s birth.

We could host the game in May, or in early June (he’s expected to arrive June 29th).

Holla

My son,

This morning I kissed you goodbye.  I know you are safe inside.  Some times I wonder about you.  Some times I am in awe of you, and with shame, I have to admit, that some times…sometimes, in the heat of the day, and the stress of it all I forget about you.

I have forgotten about a lot of things, though.

I have, until two days ago, forgotten what it was like to sit and relax.  I mean, really relax.  I sat and watched a couple of chicadees eat from the bird feeder your mother bought last summer.  I just relaxed and enjoyed them.

I hope that I will be able to just relax and enjoy you, my son.

I dreamt last night that you were of a walking age.  I dreamt that we were all in our van, and I had stopped at a red light in Grayling, and your brother and sisters got out, wanting to do a “chinese fire drill”.  I told them “no” but they laughed and went about it as if I had not spoken.  You were smiling and running with them, and in my dreamed I smiled, then I cried out, “get back here!” and jumped out of the van to grab you as on coming traffic picked up with the green light.

I wanted to pull you to saftey.

When I left this morning, you are safe.

Meeting With The Devil

Please pray for a good friend of mine today.

He is meeting with the devil.

Just remember Who’s foot he is under.

And, if you need me, I’m close by.

Confessing my sin

I have a serious sin that I have committed, not once, but twice in the last eight years.

I doubt my family knows, and if they knew they haven’t held it against me.

Laura knows, but she still loves me and is with me nonetheless

In fact, several of my friends know about it and I have spoken of it at work, only to resever sneers and geers.

The sin I need to confess – here – now?

I voted twice for George  W Bush Jr.

May God forgive me.

Early Christmas: Amazon Wish List

*Shameless plug for things I want*

I posted a link under the heading “GAMING” on the right side of this blog page for my Amazon Wish list of Dungeons and Dragons books.  You can go there and peruse my list.  A lot of the books are very inexpensive.  I plan on getting them some day.  Maybe that day will come sooner with your generosity.  No, seriously, if you’re sitting around wondering “what can I get Toby this year for Christmas” (it’s coming sooner than you think) then now you know!

Another One Bites The Dust

Interesting link

Goodbye Gary Gygax

The co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, died today.  Thanks for making the game I have loved since childhood!

Piper states: “God kicks our ass”

During a breakout session at a conference recently, well known, and well respected preacher-author, John Piper, swore while speaking. (link here)

He said that sometimes, “God kicks our ass.”

Oh course Piper later wrote an apology, but in that apology he explained why he thinks he says what he says (swears):

“I regret saying it. I am sitting here trying to figure out why I say things like that every now and then. (emphasis mine)I think it is a mixture of (sinful) audience titillation and (holy) scorn against my own flesh and against the devil, along with the desire to make the battle with Satan and my flesh feel gutsy and real and not middle-class pious. (emphasis mine) There is a significant difference between saying that God disciplines his children and saying that he ‘kicks our ass’ (the phrase used at Passion)—the effect of the first can produce a yawn and leave students with no sense of how real I mean it. I think ‘He kicks our backside’ would have sufficed. And even better might have been some concrete illustrations of the Lord’s firm spanks.”

He continues and concludes, “If I wanted to take the time, and I felt more defensive than I do, I could probably go to the Bible and find language as offensive as that in the mouth of prophets, and even God when dealing with the grossness of evil. But I doubt that the moment in the breakout session called for something that extreme. Sometimes maybe. I hope the Lord turns it for good.” He shows this again in his closing paragraph where he writes “I think if I had it to do over, I would not say it. On the one hand, I don’t like fanning the flames of those who think it is hip and cool to swear for Jesus. That, it seems to me, is immature. On the other hand, I want those hip people to listen to all I say and write, and I hope that the Lord may get a hold of them and draw them out of immaturity and into the fullness of holiness. But it backfires if one becomes unholy to make people holy. I suspect there was too much of the unholy in my heart at that moment.”

I swore while writing a blog post, and Joe wanted me taken off the Christian school’s chapel list.  I also apologized for the post, and took it down at the schools request and informed the school board that I would willingly step down if they so deemed.  I did eventually step down, for them, and because I did not want to be a stumbling block.  So, I wonder if Joe Vondoloski would have the school NOT have John Piper come and speak there knowing that he has sworn, and according to his own statements swears on occassion?

Joe, would you want your 4 year old to sit under John Piper’s ministry?

Oh, and if you’re looking to now get rid of your John Piper books (if indeed you own any) please let me know.  I’d be willing to trade you some of my Puritan writings for them….

D&D 4th Edition

Anyone else out there play D&D?

I still remember playing the 1st addition.  Remember the different colored boxes when they re-released it?

Then, of course, we played Advanced D&D.

Then 2nd Edition AD&D came out.

Now they are on the 4th Edition of D&D (they no longer have the advanced rules).

I added a link on the side of my page here for easy access.  I am STOKED!!

Dungeons & Dragons

Last night, we lost one of our companions.  Farewell, Andressa, may your bow string always sing its sweet song in our hearts.

Andressa fell at the hands of an evil goblin shamman who summoned a terrible dust devil to dispatch our reknowned archer.  Our part of three were trying to protect a halfling (hobbit) farming village from increasing goblin sightings, and goat stealings.  Upon finding their layer, we killed many of them, only to come upon their small encampment in a raveen.  It was there that we held them back, only to see their shamman summon his devilery.

Andressa fell.

We fled.