First off, I actually got back on Sunday night, so don’t be mislead into thinking I’ve been gone until now.

Nashville is a pretty darn cool town. Traffic sucks, but that’s to be expected in a large city I suppose.

I really don’t have a lot to say. I am trying to set up an interview at AOL (it’s the 3rd step in the hiring process and I’ve already finished the first 2) and hope to have that taken care of by end of week. MediaShout is still a possibility but I can’t wait around to see if anything develops – I need a job.

Josh and I went to Wal-Mart last night to get him an Xbox 360 but they were already sold-out. Surprise! I can’t believe some fools were waiting since 6 last night to buy one at 7 this morning. We wanted to throw eggs at them, but we decided not to. If you want one so freaking bad just pre-order it!

I reckon that’s all I got.

It’s amazing how music contains such memories.

I’ve spent the last few days enhancing my music collection, and am reliving some grand old times with the "We are the World" gang, U2, Queen, The Jackson 5, and MJ’s solo material. It’s all such good stuff!

I leave tomorrow at 6 AM for Nashville and hopefully a highly profitable employ. 

For those that don’t read the comments left for posts, you missed Matthew’s response to the Google for cell phones post. And for those that don’t know Matthew, this post is for and about him.

Matthew is my bro-in-law, though we leave off the "in-law’ part most of the time, who’s  in the US ARMY over in iRAQ (his spelling) with the "Mountain Medics" of CO Springs. It appears he is able to access the web more than we thought he would, and I am thankful for that as he would go crazy otherwise. In his comment, he said he hopes someone is reading this, and Matthew, there are over 150 unique visitors to the blog every week, so people read you!

We are praying and thinking about you, and hoping you have found some good guys to hang-out with. It’s good to hear you will finally pay off that laptop, though I don’t know what the ARMY would do with a tricked out laptop had they taken it from you. Don’t forget to send me a list of movies you want, I’ll hook you up proper!

If anyone has any words for Matthew (even if you may not know him) feel free to leave a comment so he knows people are reading  

Yesterday was pretty worthless.

I had to go downtown to get a copy of the police report to fax to the insurance company because they’re not doing jack about my wreck. Thankfully the line at the police station wasn’t very long and only took a few minutes, plus the report was free. After I got the report I went by AOL to see of they had gotten my resume… apparently when you apply for AOL on-line at the Time Warner job site it doesn’t send it in like you think it would. So they directed me to their website for job applicants and I filled everything out yesterday. I also went to Express, where I worked for several years, to update my info… again I had to come home and do it on-line. Today I’m going back to AOL and Express now that I’ve finished all the app stuff and we’ll see what happens.

Last night I took Gracie to McDonald’s. Here’s a really bad video of her playing.

I fell like today will be a double-post day as I have some explaining to do about upcoming jobs. 

I didn’t realize how many people actually read the site until yesterday… I guess I need to keep it better updated.

I had a great conversation with Chris Blake yesterday about the Emerging Church. For those unfamiliar with the Emergent movement, you can read a bit more about it here.  After reflecting upon that conversation that could well explain some of the conflict both Josh and I had with First church. We desire to reach out to those not knowing Christ in relevance and authenticity, breaking tradition where necessary, and embracing it when led to. These changes are reflected in the youth ministry Josh and I created (Josh was more successful in integrating these concepts into the Mid-High worship, I feel) but were never considered in regards to the main church. The thing about churches is that for the main part of man’s life on earth, religion has dictated how that life is lived. It wasn’t until several hundred years ago that man left religion and began to depend upon himself (self-deification if you will). With this process, the influence of the church began to wane, while intellectualism began to rise to power. In modern thinking, the churches response was to battle alongside with reason and intellect. However, applying those practices to post-modern thinking don’t have the same results. Today’s generations, while still intellects, look more at the results and the emotions than the facts. And for the most part, the church hasn’t adapted.

The integration of the arts, life-stories, and freedom to worship spontaneously as the spirit leads are of the utmost importance in effectively reaching this new generation for Christ. Tell them all you want, but if you don’t show them you’re wasting your time. The pre-tense that all is fine is a thin veil easily seen through. Authenticity requires that veil be ripped away so the truth of pain, struggle, and imperfection are seen by non-believers. When people see we as Christians have the same struggles as everyone else, you are then able to relate and begin an honest dialogue.