Colter points to a wonderful documentary on YouTube on the Amen Break.
Wicked awesome.
Nick Bradbury put out a call to Nashville-area bloggers asking for folks to raise awareness for Max It Out, a benefit concert that’ll be held on Sat 3 Feb 2007 at 7:00 p.m. at The Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville. I’m not a Nashville-area blogger, but I have friends who are, so perhaps they’ll pick up on this.
Having a family member struck by meningitis [my second cousin, once removed, contracted it at LSU and had a very rough go of it], this is near and dear to my heart. Make it out if you can afford it [it's pricey], or just donate if you feel so led. Thanks.
Back in late June, I was at 100k spam stopped by Spam Karma. Now I’m at 260k. Things are definitely getting worse here, but I’m still withstanding the onslaught.
Back in the saddle!
M. Ward’s Duet for Guitars #2 finishes out my month of M. Ward.![Derek Webb - One Zero [acoustic] cover](http://squarepegalliance.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/one-zero-acoustic.jpg)
Derek Webb’s One Zero [acoustic] compilation. I’ve had the rough mixes since October, but man … the final product sounds sweet.
10 Oct 2006 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootleg of various members of the Square Peg Alliance. Specifically, Matthew Perryman Jones, Andy Gullahorn, Katy Bowser, and Eric Peters. I’m working off a backlog of bootlegs.
6 Jan 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootleg of Andrew Osenga. Sometime after this show, Andrew asked, “So, when are you just going to move up here?” Good question, Andy. Good question.
25 Jan 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootleg of Derek Webb. I like being able to churn stuff out in about 48 hours. Feels good.
8 May 1995 [Hampton Beach, NH, USA] concert bootleg of Blues Traveler. Here’s the DIME URL to grab this show (registration required).The last two weeks, I’ve savored some M. Ward:
M. Ward’s End of Amnesia is a good record, but I never really got into it as I have Matt’s other stuff. There’s a number of reasons that this could be true, but I think the biggest one is that I didn’t make myself sit down and listen to it straight through with the lyrics in front of me. I’ll need to do that in the future. I give it three stars.If, like me, you’ve found yourself a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing, you’ll probably enjoy the Washingtonian.com profile of Malcolm Gladwell:
“[Washington Post Business section deputy editor] Steve [Pearlstein] was a very important encouraging force for me,†Gladwell says. Pearlstein had an “open, free-ranging mind†and taught Gladwell that having a beat gave one the “freedom to explore ideas†in the course of day-to-day reporting.
Pearlstein was known for trolling around the newsroom with a clipboard on which he kept a list of reporters, what each was working on, and when their articles were due.
“Early on, we discovered that the best thing to do with Malcolm was to let him be Malcolm,†Pearlstein says. “When you’re Malcolm’s editor, you don’t worry about whether something is important—just that it’s interesting.†He left the box on his clipboard next to “Gladwell†blank.
I’ve often worried—knowing my share of journalism-school graduates—that J-school enforces a mindset of how things should be done. While there’s certainly a fair amount of rigor demanded of good journalism—asking insightful questions, fact-checking, looking at both sides—making sure that you’re checking all the boxes can well end up with the product being very rote and mechanical. Gladwell clearly injects personality into his writing, which is one reason that I really appreciate his work.
[HT to Rex Sorgatz's Fimoculous.]
Some of you know about this, and many of those have asked; Doug got a scholarship established in Cindy’s memory at William Carey University. Information on donating to the Cindy Morris Scholarship at Wiliam Carey University is available at DougMorris.org.
Alex has released Tasks 2.7 [and TasksPro 1.7, but I haven't done that upgrade yet], and the big feature is tags, which I’m using to provide context for things I’m working on mainly by indicating where I’d work on them and/or what tools I’d use. I’m already campaigning for filtering the Upcoming screen per tag, the way Tasks Pro filters Upcoming per groups. [I may still convert my personal installation to a TPro install just to get this, even though Alex has promised me a bookmarklet next week for this over IM. Why? Well, I don't expect to be single forever, either. ;)]
Suffice it to say that I’m still a very happy Tasks user. If I have a browser open, I have a tab open to Tasks. [Yes, Alex, you can use that as a testimonial pull-quote.]
Being largely out-of-town for more than a week does leave a feed addict like me with, well, quite a backlog. I must say, I wielded a pretty strong scythe to get down to zero this time, but I’m there now. Sadly, NNW still doesn’t do this as swiftly as FeedLounge did. I miss FeedLounge’s Ui but not its craptacular performance.
The best thing about resolving not to Really Try and Read all this stuff? I missed almost all the early bitching about the iPhone. [Yes, based on what I saw in the Keynote, I'll buy one; I'm already a Cingular customer, so I'm used to their rates and it's not going to be a huge cost increase over my Treo 650. Plus, it'll be something other than my Treo 650, which is a good thing. I keep waiting for Unit #3 to die on me.]
“I kept reading your updates from the road and was thinking, ‘Man, he’s got to be really tired.’ ” And, well, I guess that I am, in a lot of ways. But I’m ready to get back to things.
Other than, of course, getting back up with my alarm clock in the morning. I haven’t been beholden to my alarm clock for a week-and-a-half. The last time I could say that, I was a college student home for the summer after his first year off at school. Phew.
There’s so much that I want to write about the last couple of weeks that I just assuredly won’t do, because … well, some of it’s really personal, and some of it’s just hard to put into words, and on both scores, navigating those shoals usually leaves me without the desire to post at the end. But man … I have been sustained by your concern for me. It’s been a blessing.
Back to the grind in six hours.
Well, I am home. Feels pretty good to be here, even if I feel like crap. My ear’s getting better, albeit slowly … and it’s definitely time for some ibuprofen and another round of drops. More later when I have had some more sleep…
Well, we had the funeral and committal yesterday in Delphos. Funerals are for the living, and we certainly needed it, even if we didn’t want it.
Afterwards, we started making the drive back, having decided to do so late on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, my right ear started to bother me yesterday—another blasted ear infection. I figured that I could make it until I got home—which I would do today [on Friday], a day early, because we’re only seven hours from west Tennessee—but after a couple hours of sleep, it’s obvious to me that I won’t make it that far without serious complications. My right ear canal is, unfortunately, swollen shut by this moment [0130 EST]. Unfortunately, both aren’t closed, so I can still hear the chorus of snoring Morris men in the room.
I’ve looked up a doc-in-a-box in Beavercreek, and I’ll be waiting on them to open at 0800. Joy, joy, joy.
The drive up today was largely uneventful, even if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night. Despite the fact that I’m the one who drove most of the way, I’m the one who’s wide ass awake right now. [I'm also the only one under 30 and the one who loves to drive, so that probably has a lot to do with it.] Despite the fact that I’d really rather not be making this trip, I’ve enjoyed the driving. The rest … well, the rest is what it is. We do what we have to do as family and the community of believers. There’s nowhere I’d rather be given the circumstances, but … I really don’t like the circumstances. [I hope that all makes sense.]
We’re going to drive down to the Dayton area tomorrow afternoon and hopefully see some old friends tomorrow night. I think we could use some friendly faces that aren’t so tired and grieving. Yes, these friends will grieve with us—look how you’ve all grieved with me—but a burden shared is a burden made a tiny bit lighter, and Lord knows that this is a very heavy burden.
Until tomorrow.
![[caedmonscall.net]](http://rocksmyfaceoff.net/images/rmfo/ccneticon.jpg "The Official Fan Site for Caedmon’s Call.")
![[derekwebb.net]](http://rocksmyfaceoff.net/images/rmfo/dwneticon.jpg "The Official Fan Site for Derek Webb. (Last updated 07/03/2004 04:24)")
![[rmfo-blogs.com]](http://rmfo-blogs.com/images/rmfoblog.png "An experiment in Weblogs for community members.")
![[rocksmyfaceoff.net]](http://ijsm.org/wordpress/wp-content/themes/ijsmorgv3/images/rmfoicon.jpg "The server I run.")
