Smashmouth - LIVE!

On August 18, after the Nascar Busch series race at the Michigan International Speedway, I got to see Smashmouth in concert! Got within about 15 feet of the stage! The crowd full of racing fans had been partying all day, so by the time of the concert it was an interesting group. For the record, I was *not* one of those going topless. Not sure how many there were true Smashmouth fans (like yours truly). Most seemed to be there because it was free after the race. But for me it was the best part of the day. I just hope Steve and the band could feel the vibe coming from where I was...singing along to every song. :)

I should really qualify this by saying that I thought of this quote while watching "The Sopranos" recently...not by thinking of anyone I know personally. :)

"When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right."

More quotes from C.S. Lewis

A decent sort of horse

"If you really are so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense. You're not quite the great Horse you had come to think...but as long as you know you're nobody very special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another."

- the Hermit of the Southern March
to Bree (a talking Horse of Narnia)
from "The Horse and His Boy"

One more reason...

...not to get breast implants.

Time to chill

From Sloth Ethic:

"Want a break from the horrors of the news pages? From compulsively checking your rss feeds (monkey press button get treat monkey press button get treat monkey press button...)?"

Slow down. Relax.

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

More quotes from C.S. Lewis

Comments on atheism...

PZ Myers: "There is no evidence, no explanation, no mysteries which we need to fill with this superman...of the supernatural"

Really? No mysteries at all? There is nothing that exists anywhere that we humans can't completely explain?

"The only truth to which I hold here is that there is no god and no evidence for one. If someone wants to rebut that firm rock to which atheism is anchored, that's the idea they have to address. None do...."

Not so. There have been many who have pointed to evidence of God, many who address that very issue. Since none of us know everything there is to know, those who are atheists simply hold a belief that there is no God...regardless of evidence that might point someone toward belief in God.

"I think there are religious people who are much smarter than I am even now. I do not make the logical fallacy of believing that because people are wrong in one thing, religion, they are therefore wrong in all things; I don't believe that Christians are irreparably stupid or that their gullibility about god translates into some gross systemic defect in their entire ability to reason."

Well, thanks for that at least, Mr. Myers. That's something anyway...and refreshing to hear for a change.

Thought of the Day:

"...That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln (Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863)

The beginning of a beautiful friendship...

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, `What! You too? I thought I was the only one!`"

More quotes from C.S. Lewis

Imogen Heap

I'm really crazy about my Imogen Heap CD "Speak for Yourself" . In case you were not already aware, she's the former lead singer of the group "Frou Frou." For anyone interested (out of the 4 people who read this blog), my favorite songs are #1, 2, 5, 9 and 11.

Check it out!

Note to self: Courage...one day at a time

"Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, I’ll try again tomorrow."

~Unknown

This one is for Jack...the poet.

"Poetry is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible."

- More quotes from C.S. Lewis

In honor of the National Day of Prayer...

Yet another quote from C. S. Lewis:

"I don't pray because it changes God. I pray because it changes me."

"What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God`s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when He catches us, as it were, off our guard."

- C. S. Lewis

Funny, I was just thinking about Stephen Covey this morning while getting ready for a new week at work...trying to remember, "what *are* those seven habits again?"
(I obviously have a ways to go before I'll be highly effective)...and here was this quote from Covey on the log in page when I got to work:

"Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us."
~Stephen Covey

Philosophically, I don't agree completely with this statement (I wouldn't consider this the ultimate freedom), but it's still something to think about.

How to Take Notes in Meetings

I've been in so many meetings lately, I could use this advice from Sloth Ethic.

"True friends are those who, when you make a fool of yourself, don't believe that this condition is permanent."

~Erwin T. Randall

Bond...James Bond

I've always enjoyed James Bond movies, even when they're a littly silly and seem all about double entendre, chase scenes and gadgets. "Casino Royale" is definitely my favorite James Bond movie...ever. Much more gritty and intriguing, not so campy and cartoonish. Daniel Craig is amazing, and so much more like the Bond in Ian Fleming's books. I've talked to people who gave up on Bond movies after the Sean Connery era. For them I say, this is the "real" James Bond.

Time well spent

"Picarello knows classical music. He is a fan of Joshua Bell but didn't recognize him; he hadn't seen a recent photo, and besides, for most of the time Picarello was pretty far away. But he knew this was not a run-of-the-mill guy out there, performing. On the video, you can see Picarello look around him now and then, almost bewildered.

When Picarello was growing up in New York, he studied violin seriously, intending to be a concert musician. But he gave it up at 18, when he decided he'd never be good enough to make it pay. Life does that to you sometimes. Sometimes, you have to do the prudent thing. So he went into another line of work. He's a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service. Doesn't play the violin much, anymore.

Does he have regrets about how things worked out?

The postal supervisor considers this.

"No. If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."

- Excerpt from an article in The Washington Post on Joshua Bell playing in a DC train station at rush hour.

"I have no fear of what science will tell us about the universe - since God is definitionally the Creator of such a universe; and the meaning of the universe cannot be in conflict with its Creator. I do not, in other words, see reason as somehow in conflict with faith - since both are reconciled by a Truth that may yet be beyond our understanding."

- Andrew Sullivan (author "The Conservative Soul") from a blogging debate I found through my friend, Jack.