From the Mind of MandoRon

GP represented BIG TIME at the Sundown Parade last night. We kicked off the Wichita River Festival with volume, if not style. For the last several years, Edge of Grace has played on a float in the parade. Also making it’s debut appearance in the parade, was the GP bus. We also had a small army of walkers.

It was incredible!

We learned that the only thing better than one electric guitar is three electric guitars and an electric mandolin. Special thanks to GP Productions for showing up early and getting the rig ready to ROCK.

Don’t forget to check out Edge of Grace next Friday and Saturday too. Details here.

Some pictures that I took.,,

Here’s most of the gang on the float.

Christina showing us her tonsils…

Amy (notice the GP bus in the background)

Happy Birthday Jim!

Kevin

There’s no pink kink in Nash’s think

Jeff

Chris (a.k.a. Iron Cobra)

This was my area. (I guess I should have had someone take a picture of me…)

If anybody got a good photo of me, please email me.

[Update: I added some more pictures on Monday. Check them out here.]

Thanks for looking!

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

This week’s links of interest.  Enjoy!

• Interesting youtube video showing a ball bearing beat sequencer. By moving the ball bearings around, you can generate different beats.
• Check out Threadless T-shirts. Each week, Threadless offers many new t-shirt designs. The design ideas are submitted by average joes and voted on by website viewers. It’s a pretty cool idea, and they’ve got some really cool shirts.
• Guy Kawasaki has pictures of some really cool gadgets and other interesting things from the Maker Faire, whatever that is.
• A few thoughts on motivation over at the In Worship blog.
• More hilariousness (sort of) from Stuff Christians Like: Kicking old ladies in the face for God. (Is hilariousness a word?)
• And another funny post from Stuff Christians Like on the subject of praying before meals.
• Welcome by brother-in-law, Scott, and his family to the blogosphere - Four Kochs.

Jon Acuff, over at Stuff Christians Like, has a great post this week on the subject of temptation.

Jon makes several great points:

• Temptation rarely just falls from the sky. Usually it is cultivated and grown.
• “Temptation works best in isolation.” Community helps keep you accountable.
• Making bad decisions is a slow process. They don’t usually just happen overnight.
• Temptation is patient. It will take it’s time to hunt you down, so you must be diligent in keeping it away.

Matthew 26:41 - “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

1 Corinthians 10:13 - “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

Thanks for the reminder Jon.

Today is post number 100. Somehow, the world has endured 99 posts from the MandoRon blog.

It all started back on February 15, 2008 with my first post. At the time, I thought that I’d “probably mention music frequently, GracePoint Church, Edge of Grace (the worship band at GracePoint Church where I play mandolin), my family, my thoughts on leadership, maybe even culture.”

I think that’s held true pretty well. Music has definitely been the most frequent topic. Second, has been humor. Or at least things that I thought were funny…

For the next 100 posts, I hope to focus on leadership more. We’ll see if that happens, or not.

I just thought I’d point out a few interesting things about the blog.

• The blog has averaged about 190 views each week according to Wordpress.
• February 28 was the most views in a day - 77.
• Average of 8.3 new posts each week. My goal was (and is) 5 new posts each week.
• Demotivation has been the most popular post with 109 views, followed by God of This City with 72 views. Both of these posts get traffic from search engines almost every day. Amazing.
• 351 Spam comments. Didn’t expect that.
• Most common search terms that find my blog: “demotivating posters”, “hay-soos”, and “god of this city story”.
• The top clickthroughs from the blog are to an article about God of This City (32 clicks) and the Edge of Grace website (22 clicks).

Thanks to everyone that has stopped by and looked!

Friday is the kickoff of the annual Wichita River Festival. Like most years, there is a lot of great music scheduled for the nine days of the festival.

Colbie Caillat kicks things off Friday night. You’ve got Three Dog Night on Saturday, and WAR on Sunday. Not to mention the smaller acts. What a weekend!

This year you also get a triple dose of Edge of Grace.

• Friday, May 9 @ 6:30 - EoG will be playing on the back of a flatbed semi trailer in the Sundown Parade. I guess you could say that we’re opening for Colbie… This will be third or fourth year to play in the parade. It’s a lot of fun. I’ll be the guy playing the flamed electric mandolin. There’s a new parade route, so be sure to check it out here.
• Friday, May 16 @ 8:00 - We’ve been asked to play at the Block Party. We’re the third group at the Main & Douglas stage. Rumor has it that our brotherfromanothermother, PC Revelations, will be making an appearance.
• Saturday, May 17 @ tbd - Ruben’s Mexican Grill has asked us to do a little pre-fireworks concert. Ruben’s is located on the west corner of Dougas & McLean.

(And don’t forget the Sunday Morning services at Maize South Middle School either…)

Last year at the parade, a photographer from the Wichita Eagle jumped on the trailer and snapped this photo which ran on the front page of the Local and State section.

Please remember to pray for good weather!