mindlessbabble

TV- Let's Kick it Old School.

2009-05-04T20:30:00.002-04:00

Why don't broadcasters just start live streaming everything and return tv to it's old school roots? Tuning in and seeing whats going on out there.

In the Olden Days you had only 3 or 4 choices to "watch" but now, with that there cablevision, and them whiz bang satellites and that new fangled inter-web...I can get get my infotainment from any where I choose. The other day I stood at the hot-dog cart waiting for my dogs, watching @fox29 live twitter a press conference on my iphone. Brilliant. Absolutely freaking brilliant.

It's time to take viewers beyond, "On Demand". If Local TV wants to sell air time over (pre-recorded) web inventory, or cable inventory...putting everything on the web right now just makes sense. It's only a matter of time before I will be able to watch over the air broadcasts on my phone as I commute to and from work ( i ride transit, don't be alarmed) If we made this jump right now, we could beat the competition to the ad dollars, and we could (in theory) sell the web component along side the broadcast component.

For the most part, people don't have cable tv in their offices, and don't sit there all day watching TV (I kinda get paid to do it), So there is a whole new set of eyeballs that broadcasters are shut off from during the day. If TV stations would bite the bullet, and start streaming everything, would it be worth the investment?

I think jumping first is a scary thing for major corporations. They like to see how things will play out, and then will buy up the thing that works. In my opinion, putting all the cards on the table right now could be the smartest move yet. The internet is about fresh content now, and what better way to capitalize than to go live with all the content now. I'm not sure a litany of court shows all day are going to draw a loyal fan base from coffee shops with WiFi customers. So it may be time to take back the airwaves, start producing local content, and selling time against content and products that people actually are engaged by.

This is what I mean by tv needs to go "old school". Fresh local content, streamed constantly (or live ) on the internet, and re-engaging the local viewers in local ways.

My prediction is that this is going to happen, its just a matter of who jumps first.

2009-04-17T22:49:00.001-04:00

testing the texting

De-lamify!

2009-04-16T12:19:00.007-04:00

I agree with Rainn.

Hold Me Jesus

2009-03-30T11:58:00.002-04:00

The lyrics from this Rich Mullins song have been wafting about in my head for weeks. And, thanks to a blog post i read this morning, it has been on repeat in my mind all day. Each time i sing it in my head, my soul is emotionally affected. Since i really shouldn't put out here what i have actually writing myself, I feel like posting Rich's words.

Well, sometimes my life just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace
And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace
Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees
And this Salvation Army band is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin
I'm singing hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

William Penn of Justiceness.

2009-03-02T21:31:00.003-05:00

I go down these stairs everyday, but i rarley turn around alook behind me. This morning I did. This was the view. Enjoy.

Saturday Pic

2009-02-28T20:20:00.002-05:00

In December we had our kitchen re-done by one of them make over shows. This was from one of the shoot days. They totally re-did the kitchen in 12 days. The show will be on in March sometime.

Bottle Bouquet

2009-02-27T22:06:00.002-05:00

One night during the summer the neighbors gathered for a meal. At the end of dining this was the lovely center piece in the middle of the table.

classic red

2009-02-27T22:03:00.002-05:00

This bike was chained to the rail by the coop nursery school where my wife works. I thought it classic.

Nice Cans

2009-02-25T21:56:00.002-05:00

The Coke machine at the office has a window. Hello cans, you all look cozy in there, I guess you need to huddle to stay warm.

Picture Day 2

2009-02-24T22:52:00.002-05:00

The last day of fall...or at least it was in our books. This was the last day the leaves were still o the trees before the wind swept them away in preparation for the long cold winter. We took this walk knowing the following day would be a blustery sunday when the color would disappear. Grateful that we took this walk

Picture Pages

2009-02-24T03:14:00.007-05:00

I think i am going to start uploading photos. I am always trying to think of something to put out here, and writing words takes more brain power than I usually have stored up inside my head.

Its seems reasonable (because i have I have been taking shots since i was about 7 years old) to begin showing the rest of the world what i am seeing. i love photographs, and i have about 50,000 between my 2 computers, so i thought maybe its time to start sharing.

They may be crap, they may be spectacular, either way they are mine, and i am going to open this up as my own little online gallery.

The goal to start with will be to share a shot a day. I know this is not an earth shattering new concept, but i have insomnia and right now at 3.23 in the am it sounds like a dandy little idea.

For starters, this is my greeting to you (3) who will be stopping by to see what i am seeing. (see we are waving)

For the record, I usually use a Canon 20 d, but there may be may occasion in which the iPhone camera is utilized. I have tons of shots already gathered from the past few years, so i may not need to take a new pic for quite some time.

Please comment, critique, or criticize what you see. I am just a guy who sees stuff and tries to capture what i see. I am by no means a professional photographer.

With all that, lets begin this little experiment, and see how long i can keep it up.

Mike

Choose Joy

2009-02-05T15:10:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine from college (i use the term loosely because we never hung out or spent time together, but he was a guy I knew, who was friendly.) He was in a "rival" band during our college years. He was the brooding good looking lead singer of his band. Myself...I was the chubby, not so brooding drummer of my band. Any how, Through the miracle of facebook he is now my "friend"

He put this on his blog yesterday. I found it inspiring and thought provoking. It goes along with my new philosophy on life: "I have a choice. I can bring in the joy, or i can suck the life out of the room"

Mr. Ivey has good thoughts, His blog is called "The Protagonist Theory" I asked him If i could share this with everyone i come into contact with, and he said "yes". So...I am reposting and linking to his blog here. Good Stuff.

Choose joy.

There’s a lot of bad stuff happening right now. I won’t get into the details as the details seem to be penetrating everyone’s lives these days. I have been forced to dwell on circumstances lately, and that’s a dangerous and silly place to be.

My father died of Lou Gehrig’s disease a long time ago. A few weeks before he died, I woke up one morning to a note taped to the outside of my bedroom door. My dad wrote it some time in the middle of the night… said he was just thinking about me and how hard it must be to be a seventh-grader.

Father was right-handed. He made mention to me on several occasions – while we were playing ball or throwing rocks into a lake – that he’d always wished he was ambidextrous. He said most great athletes “could go both ways.” Father was not ambidextrous, but as it turned out, he got to write the note with his left hand. It had been several weeks since the last twitch took his good arm from him.

Here’s what the note said:

You are going to have a great day. It’s yours, and you can make it anything you want it to be. If the weather calls for rain, decide now that you will enjoy getting wet. If the test score is low, make up your mind that ‘it can only get better from here.’ If punished unfairly for something, just smile for the many things you’ve not been caught for… Attitude is everything. Today is not yet anything. Fill it with laughter. Dad.

I’m trying to remember that. Trying to choose joy over circumstance. Trying to truly believe that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that the only thing we’re supposed to do every day… no matter what… is choose joy.

Posted by Billy Ivey

25 Random Things

2009-02-02T15:59:00.003-05:00

So I did this on Facebook, and thought..i have not put anything on the old blog lately, so I'll just throw this on over here. ( this image has nothing to do with it, i just thought it was neat-o and random so it fit )

Enjoy.

1. My Name is Michael Frederick, My Great Grandfather was Frederick Michaels. My Brother thinks its funny to call me Fred-er-dick, But thats because his name is Richard...

2. When i was 3 my family moved to puerto rico (NAVY) and I used to play alone as a 4 and 5 year old kid on cliffs above the ocean...and climb on giant rocks all alone while the Caribbean sea waves crashed against them, Again, ALONE, 4 or 5 years old...

3. I am an officially licensed Baptist minister in the state of Florida. I can legally marry and bury people. I super secretly still want to be a pastor/preacher.

4. When I was 4 or 5 years old, i threw open the back door of our house and hosed down the laundry room with a real hose and real water. I was pretending it was on fire. My Mother and Father both gave me a beating i have never forgotten.

5. The first time I heard the song "Gracie" by Ben Folds it was Live at a lunchtime concert at the electric factory and i stood by the sound board and nearly burst out sobbing. I had to drink water, and choke back the tears.

6. When Scout was born, I sobbed uncontrollably like a little boy.

7. The first time I Smoked pot was on a High School Church Retreat called "Spark".

8. I have only consumed alcohol until inebriation once in my life. I threw up many many times and I swore I would never do it again, and I never have.

9. If i only had one album to listen to over and over and over again, it would be "The Essential Johnny Cash" Volume 1-3

10. I am still bitter that I missed the first and second lollapalooza's because they were conflicts with church related activities. (the rest of them sucked, so i didn't go and don't care)

11. I wrestled with a monkey on top of "The Rock of Gibraltar" over my back pack and a loaf of bread. I won.

12. I had to go to summer school in second grade. My IQ test in 3rd grade was 134, In 4th grade i tested at an 11th grade reading level. I failed 8th grade, was kicked out of 2 christian schools. Dropped out of High School in 10th grade, got my GED and graduated from college 7 years later.

13. I did not read a book from cover to cover until i was 27 years old.

14. I just inadvertently clicked off of this note and lost numbers 14 - 25. I am never going to remember what I wrote, So i'm pretty pissed.

15. I love massive wide open spaces. Like Wyoming, Montana, or Colorado. To hike up a hill and look out over expansive valleys filled with lush green grass brings me closer to jesus and makes my soul happy.

16. I have a scarf that my wife made me that is one of my favorite things in the world.

17. I am in love with my crest spin brush.

18. I am literally falling asleep while writing this.

19. I once didn't wear pants (or underpants) for 2 months. When i was 13 i nearly died in a car accident with my brother. I broke my Femur, Hip, and tibia. Was in traction for 2 months. Then was in a Half Body cast for 6 weeks after.

20. I had a half pipe (skateboard ramp) in my backyard when i was a teenage boy. It was 6ft high and 16 feet wide. It was pretty sweet.

21. I lied about my age when i was 17 so that i could drive my truck at a drag strip in bithlo Florida. I was doing 13 second 1/4 miles. I beat everyone i raced.

22. I want to be famous. I want to be on TV or in the Movies.

23. I would like to Write a book, Direct a major motion picture, write a screen play and write and record my own album.

24. The first girl I kissed was in 5th grade. Her name was Wendy, and we french kissed many many times.

25. I have been to Italy, Spain, Paris, England, Scotland, Mexico. I love to travel. I love to eat good food and drink good wine.

Starbucks and wifi

2009-01-01T12:03:00.005-05:00

I am doing something today i have never done before. Sitting in a Starbucks, connected to the wifi and surfing the inter-web. I have dreamed about this day for what seems like ages. This has been the life i wanted...waking up, walking up the street to starbucks, speding hours ojn the internet, networking, working, writing, wasting time on facebook. I have thought if i could get paid for this...this would be my ideal day every day.

It is slightly less fulfilling than i had imagined. It might be because everybody has today off and there are a lot of people in here, and there are college students having loud conversations about football and new years eve antics....

I have this dream one day of working my own hours, making my own decisions, and doing the majority of my work from home or from a starbucks somewhere. I am not sure this is ever going to be a reality, because we have to pay the bills, and send the girl to school, and save for college and retirement.

For today, this will work...the wife and daughter are down in Florida with family, so i can sit here with my laptop pretend that i work for myself and have a really cool job that lets me sit here and be cool in a coffee shop...Because tomorrow its back down town to the real job where they do pay me the money to pay my bills...

Oh, and its clearing a little in here, and the noise level is dropping, i just hope the college kids now talking about ESPN and how much sports they watch will soon finish their hot beverages and go home...

My Lame Attempt at a "Top" list for 2008

2008-12-31T15:39:00.003-05:00

Since it is the final day of 08 I guess I must throw at least something together to at least appear that i have had at leas SOME kind of opinion on music for the last 12 months.

Sadly i cannot remember the last musical Purchase I have Made.

If I was to assemble anything in the form of a top anything for this year it would be this.

She & Him: Volume 1. She is Zooey Deschanel and He is M Ward. She is awesome and I love her voice. I have wanted her to put out an album since she sang in the shower with Will Ferrel in Elf. It is my favorite for the year.

After that I am not in love with any albums from the past 12 months...that I know of.

My Top Songs for 2008

Kings Of Leon "use somebody" and "sex on fire"
Santogold "L.E.S. Artistes"

I have had people raving about Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes but i cannot get into either.

I have However been listening to Rosie Thomas "these freinds of mine" Which is from 2007...but is very good. And i have been Listening to an assortment of Sufjan Stevens Christmas Recordings. "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" Is one of my favourite recordings in recent history.

So that is the sad state of affairs in my musical world. Maybe 2009 will be a better year for my musical endeavors...

Peace, Good tidings And New Years Bliss to you

Weezer Christmas

2008-12-18T21:17:00.003-05:00

So I just discovered this...Weezer put out a Christmas Album. Which is fun and great, but it's also interesting. Interesting to me becuase of the song list. check it out:

We Wish You a Merry Christmas
O Come All Ye Faithful
O Holy Night
The First Noel
Hark! The Herald Angel Sing
Silent Night

5 of the 6 songs are Classic Christmas Carols, Which are hymns that are all about worshiping the new born Jesus. For whatever reason this struck me as significant. Rivers Coumo and company could have picked a handful of songs that are all about the superficiality of christmas and chestnuts, and yule logs, and consumerism, but they didn't. I have been accused of always trying to find the hidden meaning, always to looking for something that might not be there, trying to see where there might be something that signifies a greater meaning or purpose. So I am doing my best to not do that here, so I just pose the question...Is there a reason beyond musical preference that these 5 songs were selected? Is there worship in the heart of these weezerific versions of these 5 christmas songs? I don't know. What i do know is that i think its cool. Because i can worship, while hearing these. I like that. Thanks Rivers.

my holiday distraction

2008-12-16T01:50:00.004-05:00

This december finds us very far from the christmas process. sure we were playing christmas music before thanksgiving rolled around, but we have strayed from our holiday festivities to be consumed by kitchen construction.

(Kristin getting out 5.5 years of frustration)

We are about halfway through our 13 day journey to a new kitchen. When it is all said and done its going to be part of a new show on the DIY network called "kitchen impossible". So far it is shaping up quite nice. We just are way way behind on anything christmas. We can't hold our yearly party where we ask all the people that we like to come over and hang out with us. we have not done any christmas shopping, and we have to travel as soon as this process is completed. Our living room is filled with cabinets right now, and the entire down stairs is covered in dust. Its a good time. Its just really bad timing for me. I have this mental block about getting ready for christmas while this is all going on. It seems that i am stuck in one state of being and i have the worst ability in the world to multi-task. Right now i also have insomnia and i am supposed to be ready to install things like cabinets tomorrow morning.

(This is after demo day when we took the wall down.)

For whatever reason i have this sadness pouring over me as i sit here and write out these words. maybe its the sad song in my ears, maybe its the overwhelming spirit wafting about the life i am in at this moment, maybe its the hour of night and the lack of sleep. what ever it may be i am sure will be cured by business and caffeine come morning, but for now to sit here in this moment, for whatever reason, the sadness that wells up in my chest, is good. I am not sure why, but it feels necessary. My hope is that tomorrow will bring fresh life and fresh perspective and the ability to cope with all the stuff we are right now processing.

When its done, you'll have to catch it on DIY before i post pics. When we find out when it airs, I'll put it out here

Thanks for stopping by.

Mike

Last Years Presentation...

2008-11-07T10:39:00.004-05:00

OK,

Here is that other presentation that i was talking about. I said back in september I would post it, and here it is. This was was the 2007 fall presentation. I drank 6 shots of espresso, sat down at my computer and wrote this in about 20 mins. Much Fun. I did not think the bosses would go for it, but when i showed the new GM (at the time he had only been here for about 5 months) the script, he said "I love it, Lets do it". The Video is WAY Compressed because this started out as a 5.4 gb file. So it looks a little crappy. Apologies.

Enjoy.

Things are Lookin' Up.

2008-09-24T21:51:00.002-04:00

Something big or good is gonna happen. You know how i know why? Because I saw the Kings of Leon on SNL this week, and I have fallen in love with the song "use somebody" from their new album. My basis for this is this: About 6 years ago i saw the strokes on SNL and they were making their debut playing a song from "Is This It"? It was a pivotal point in my musical enlightenment. I am not sure why but it was. Not long after this, we went to new york, and I heard the same song being played at this guys party on his Manahattan Deck. I got into this crazy conversation about Julian Casablancas with this guy who was a shoe designer, and how they made their name big in the NYC bars/clubs before they hit the Bigtime.

It was not long after this good stuff started to happen.

Anyway, I saw Kings Of Leon this week on SNL, and I have not been a fan of them before, I have a friend who has been a fan for along time and trying to make me a convert, but i have resisted. Until now. There is something about the vocals in this song that has captured my love. It's not just the lead vocal, its this oooohh, woooh, ooohh, that the drummer, guitar player, and bass player are doing around the lead vocal. This morning i Heard it again on KEXP and it cemented the fact that I love this song. Its been in my head all day.

As i was walking up the the street tonight to go get some draino for the tub, it came to me. Its time. Time for some good stuff. Something exciting, something exhilarating, something wickedly awesome. I know becuase its not every week that i hear a band on SNL and fall in love with a song. It happened once 6 -ish years ago, and now this week.

This is good, really good.

Presenting...

2008-09-11T15:41:00.008-04:00

Every year in Philadelphia, about 400 people gather together in a room at the lowes hotel and strut their TV best. 12 TV Stations have 7 minutes to showcase their stuff. The problem has been that every single presentation started becoming the same. Loud music, flashy graphics, quick edits.

Last year I decided to take a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic approach, and it made light of the entire process. It worked. People laughed, and it was fun to do. About 3 months ago i started to obsess over what we were going to do this year. We had to take it in a completely different direction, we could not go back to the same old presentation so we made a Rap Video ( Of Course ). We took our inspiration from a youtube video called "promo pimp" and wrote our own hip hop song. We enlisted the Help of local quizzo master Johnny Goodtimes ( we co-wrote the rhyme ) and he laid down the vocals at milkboy studios in Ardmore.

I have not had this much fun in tv in a long time. We have been working on this for about the last 6 weeks. Today was the day of the presentation. The folks in the room, i am not quite sure knew what they were looking at. They did not know whether to laugh, or clap, or just sit their...

which was awesome.

So you can have some context, i will post last years video in the near future...it is a huge file, i need to convert it.

Enjoy.

This is why i am getting screwed

2008-09-02T23:39:00.001-04:00

How much spam you get may depend on the first letter in your e-mail address, a study reveals.

The analysis, of more than 500 million junk messages, revealed those letters that get more junk than average.

It found that e-mail addresses starting with an "A", "M" or "S" got more than 40% spam. By contrast those beginning with a "Q" or "Z" got about 20%.

The difference could be down to the way spammers generate e-mail addresses they want to target, said the study.

Letter attack

The analysis was carried out by University of Cambridge computer scientist Dr Richard Clayton, in a bid to understand the widely noted discrepancies in the amounts of junk mail or spam that different people receive.

Dr Clayton took as his dataset the 550 million e-mail messages sent to customers of net service Demon between 1 February and 27 March 2008.

Looking at the mix of messages landing in inboxes, Dr Clayton found a wide discrepancy in the amounts of junk that different addresses received which seemed to hinge on their initial letters.

The most popular letters for spammers were "A", "M", "S", "R" and "P". about 40% of all the messages arriving in the e-mail inboxes of accounts with addresses that had one of those characters as their first letter were junk. Much less popular were "Q", "Z" and "Y". For these cases, spam was running at about 20% or less.

The reason for the difference could be partly explained, said Dr Clayton, by the way that spammers generate e-mail addresses to which they then send junk messages.

Often, he said, they carry out so-called "dictionary" attacks. In these, spammers take the part of a live e-mail address in front of the "@" symbol that they know is live, and add that to other net domain names to generate a new one.

For instance, spammers who know that there is a real person attached to john@example.com may try john@another.com to see if that reaches a live account too.

As a result the relative abundance of names beginning with "M" compared to "Q" could explain some of the disparities, as spammers would be more likely to re-use popular names and send them more junk.

Dr Clayton said the research had thrown up some anomalies that needed further research. For instance, he said, addresses starting with the letter "U" appear to get more than 50% spam despite there being relatively few of them.

Democratic Convention Benediction: Joel Hunter

2008-08-29T00:31:00.004-04:00

Joel Hunter is the Pastor of a very large church in central florida. I have never heard him speak before, but I am interested in his position on things. He's a pro life, card carrying republican. Which makes him praying at the end of the Democratic Convention very intriguing. It's my understanding that a few years back, he was enlisted to be the head of the new Christian Coalition, and he accepted, but then he said he wanted to stop focusing so much on abortion and gay marriage and then focus on poverty, aids, environment, social injustice, and the leaders at the CC said...uh...No Thanks. (at least this is how i remember this going down)

So I give him props for trying to get the old school conservatives to start thinking about more than the same old thing.

(No One transcribed it yet, and i am not that Hardcore. If someone does it, i'll revise this)

Donald Miller's Democratic Benediction

2008-08-26T11:05:00.003-04:00

This is the Prayer that Donald Miller Prayed at the close of the Democratic Convention's Opening Night.

"Father God,

This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.

We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation.

We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.

Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left.

Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them.

Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.

Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.

Hep us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education.

Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.

We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there. We need your help.

Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world.

A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.

Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world.

Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.

Lastly, father, unify us.

Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common.

And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.

God we know that you are good.

Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.

I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice.

Let Him be our example.

Amen."

re-learning to pray...

2008-08-19T10:21:00.007-04:00

For months it seems i have been on this track of withdrawing. from friendships, from community, from engaging interaction with people i love, and withdrawing from my relationship with jesus. I am not in a low point in life, I am not struggling with marriage, I am not in some of the dire spots i have been in in my life. I just feel like i have been putting myself out there for a long period of time and the introvert buried deep in my soul is trying to come out. Not that, that makes any sense, because introverted i am not. So i find myself in this weird position of feeling that life is moving along just fine without much interaction from god, and without much interaction from the community of folks i have been building for the last 4-5 years.

But, i sit here, and i have this hollow feeling in my gut, and i feel like i am leaving god behind, and its ok because life seems to be good. I have this need to reconnect with jesus. I need to pray, i need to get him back into my daily thought process. I know at my core, how i function, and what motivates me has not changed, I still feel very rooted in a belief in god, and his desire for me to know him better. That is not changed, what i do feel has changed is this outward interaction with life that has me confused and kind of sad. (where the sad comes from i am not sure, that maybe the caffiene crash i am feeling)

So I think what I need right now is prayer. My own personal prayer, and the voices of others lifting up my heart and soul to jesus. I am a firm believer that prayer is not just me asking god for stuff, but me talking to god, and in the process me learning about my heart and the way i perceive life, faith, love, and the journey. I believe that god changes us through this, teaches us through this, and draws us closer to him. I am asking for my heart to to change, to be re-aligned with the god who desires for me to have a full life, and not just a hum-drum existence. I am desiring for jesus to come in and flip a switch, and turn the lights back on, because honestly i feel like i have been on a 6 month hiatus from earnestly engaging with him the way i feel like i need to.

Some of this may come from my need to feel good about stuff, and my need for comfort, but i think the thread that ties this all together is the fact that daily i know i need jesus. I know I can make it through the days without him, but do i really want to? I did this for a long time, and in the end found myself joyless and broken. Am i Afriad to go back there? Absolutely. Do I really think that I will end up there? I don't know. I know that choices in life lead to circumstances that you have to face. I don't want to face some of my past ever again, so this very well could be a driving factor. This could also be me just searching for excuses, or trying to justify why i feel the way i do.

Regardless, I think i need to re-learn how to pray. How to sit in the morning and talk to jesus before my day gets rolling, on the way to work, and throughout the day. I need this to change my heart and bring me back to the place where i believe he wants me.
Is this all a load of crap? It might be...but deep down inside me i know there is something that is driving me in the direction i am going. I don't want it to be the wrong direction, so I have stopped and taken notice.

If your the praying kind. I would solicit your voice to jesus for me and my family. I thank you for your willingness to intercede for us, and I pray that your path will lead you to the place where jesus wants you to be.

peace

Mike

Good News!

2008-08-12T22:12:00.002-04:00

In my previous post i was lamenting the fact that there is no place good to go get a beer and a burger in my neighborhood. I Have great news. I have found an awesome little corner bar that has no coors, yuengling, bud light, or miller lite on tap. Nope not one single crappy beer on tap. They had Legacy, Boulder, Spatan, Ballast Point. The bad news is that it is not within walking distance of the house. I guess its a small price to pay for not having to drive into center city or over to mt airy to get a good beer. The Bartender was aptly inked, and his Bar maven was as well, and his beer nerdiness was very much appreciated. The fries good. the Quesadilla good. the Pizza, Not good, but the beer list was pretty spectacular. A burger passed byus as we sat there, and it look quite tasty, but we were there for the beer. So here's the deal. I can't tell you what its called or where it is. Because there were about 10 locals in there, and my friend and i were enjoying one side of the u shaped bar for about 45 minutes to ourselves. I feel like we have to keep this to ourselves, becuase my last favorite bar has become more popular and the last time i walked in there, i walked right back out. So..Apologies to anyone hoping to know what this little gem may be. If you want to come with...we might have to blind fold you.