From the Mind of MandoRon

Edge of Grace

I had the great privilege of running sound this year.  I also got to bust a little rap on Jesus Freak!

I still find it a little frightening just how well Gil and Mike sing Whip It…

I took some pictures and video.  I’ll have to see how the video turned out.

For now, i’d like to leave you with a picture I call “Tommy and the Poser”.  Notice that Mike’s guitar (really Tommy’s backup…) isn’t plugged in.

Tommy and the Poser

I uploaded some more pictures to the virb site here. Just remember to scroll down a little to get to the new WWFP album.

I just wanted to share two verses that stuck out at me this morning from The Message - Romans 7:22-23.

22 I truly delight in God’s commands, 23 but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight.

Well Ribbet Computers informed me today that the Unmountable Boot Volume blue screen was due to a failed hard drive.  So it appears that we’ve lost quite a bit of rather important stuff…  Turns out that the performance problems we’ve been having were hardware related, not software like I thought.

This weekend, I’m going to take the laptop to my brother and have him put a new hard drive in it and reinstall Windows. 

In the meantime, I went to Best Buy tonight and purchased an HP laptop that was on sale. I also picked up a 500 GB external hard drive for $99 so I can begin backing up my computers.  What a novel idea…

Some people gotta learn the hard way. 

So I’ve got it connected to our wireless network, and I’m currently installing Avast antivirus software.  That will probably be enough for tonight.

Tomorrow, I’ll start working on Firefox, itunes,  Office, and CyberSitter.

I was just reading this article about Terrell Owens and Adam “Pacman” Jones at the Dallas Cowboys training camp.

Both of these two football personalities have had their share of off-the-field incidents and infamy.  Both are apparently huge egos.

T.O. scores a TD

You would think that when the receiver and the cornerback line up against each other in practice, that their egos would collide. But it sounds like they are teammates taking advantage of the opportunity to learn from each other.

Jones - “I think I’m the best. He thinks he’s the best, so that will make us better. I know on Sunday my job will be a whole lot easier. It helps me a lot. T.O. is a world-class athlete. … I’m enjoying myself and I’m getting better every day.”

This is what teammates do.  Maybe it’s a bit of NFL commentary that I was surpised by teammates acting like teammates…

Here’s what is on my mind at the moment…

• I called a friend from GP, Brandon Hill, to schedule a massage tomorrow.  Last weekend, I felt like I had whiplash despite not being in an accident.  It got better over the couse of the week thanks to Tiger Balm, ibuprofen, and heat.  Then yesterday the muscle cramps spread down my back.  I got up at 4:45 this morning because I was in too much pain to sleep.   The previous treatments take the edge off, but that’s all.  I may need to go to the doctor too for some muscle relaxants.
• I’ve bought my wife massages before, but I’ve never paid for one for me…
• Got an email this weekend about the opening of the official OSU Photo Store (that’s Oklahoma State by the way).  I’m thinking a nice photo of Gallagher-Iba Arena would look good on my wall at work. Or maybe Pistol Pete.  At $99 for a framed 20×16 print, I’ll probably have to pass. 
• I think the neck pain is a symptom of stress.  Work (and life in general to a lesser extent) has been rather stressful lately.  I’m trying to hire another person at work to ease the workload and improve the overall performance.  I’ll be making an offer this week, but it may take 2 or 3 months for him to start due to relocation.
• Things are so crazy at work right now, that I’d be happy hiring any warm body with a partially functioning brain as long as they could start tomorrow.  But I know that I’d regret the hiring decision in a few months.  So I’d rather endure another month or two of madness in order to get the right person in the job.
• One of the other things that is bugging me is it seems that everything we own is needing fixed or replaced.  I’ve got 4 dress shirts that have all developed the same stain on the tip of the collar.  I had to drop $125 on new ones yesterday.  I bought new black dress shoes recently and gouged the toe on a concrete step the third time I wore them.  Now I need another new pair…  I had to put the van in the shop this week which set me back $300.  The laptop is on the fritz and may need to be replaced.  The repair shop is supposed to call back tomorrow to let me know what’s wrong. The earbuds on my ipod are falling apart, and the new ones that I want are rather pricey. Etc, etc, etc…
• The laptop problem has got me thinking about backing up our data.  My itunes library, pictures, and the book that my wife recently started writing are only on that laptop.  I’m going to go buy a portable hard drive ASAP and start backing up regularly.  I can’t believe that you can get a 1 Terabyte drive for $190! My first PC in 1994 had a 540 Megabyte hard drive.  None of my friends had one that big, and I was told I’d never fill it up.  Two years later, I added a 1.6 GB drive to the computer. One TB is pretty freakin’ big.  I’m thinking 500 GB, so I can back up two computers to it.
• Just got back from McDonalds. The kids had some free ice cream cone coupons that we used.
• I saw a guy while we there, that I assumed (incorrectly) was homeless.  (He looked like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump after he finished running across the country twice.) As we were leaving, I noticed he was using a laptop.  Definitely not homeless.  His hat and matching red truck advertised the mountain man website www.talking-bear.com.   Check out the website.  Kind of interesting.

Whew, I guess I had a lot on my mind tonight…  See you around.