From the Mind of MandoRon

Today, I’m celebrating 14 years with the most wonderful woman in the world!

Just in case you’re insanely curious, I thought I’d share which posts generated the most traffic this year.  Note that the top five generated a heck of a lot more hits than the second five…

1. Unmountable Boot Volume - this post ranting about laptop trouble generated a lot of search engine hits for a while
2. “Vision” Demotivational Poster - a lot of search engine hits every day
3. Demotivation - this was one of my personal favorites.  It continues to generate traffic almost every day.  It was even linked to by a business consultant’s blog as worth reading.  I’ve been thinking about doing a part 2.
4. God of This City - this blog about the story behind the song continues to generate regular hits.  This was written before I got burned out on the song…
5. Funny Chili’s Commercial - “Musical Chairs” - funny, funny, funny!  I got a lot of search engine traffic while this was first running on T.V.
6. T.O. versus Pacman - this post has been getting a lot of image search hits lately for the photo of Terrell Owens that I used.  Not sure why…
7. Underwear Attack! - another favorite post.  My kids are funny people.
8. Baby Named Jesus - video of a Christmas song that my daughter wrote
9. Mandolin for Sale - I sold my mandolin pretty quick!
10. Skillet was on fire! - post about a Skillet concert, complete with pyrotechnics, last winter.

As we were driving down to OKC on Christmas Day, the kids were watching Camp Rock in the back.

As you can tell from the video, Jada was having a good time!  The best moments actually occurred before I thought to pull out my phone and record it.

Happy December 29th!  I’m sure it’s a holiday somewhere.

The UPS truck pulled up to the house today while I was playing Tiger Woods golf on the Wii.  I was surprised because we weren’t expecting anything.  It was a CD called Adrienna Valentine by Trent Wagler and Jay Lapp.  It was a gift from a guy at work.  I had never heard of these guys before but they’re very good.  They play Americana Roots stuff.  I’ve only been able to listen to a few songs, but I really like it so far.  Jay is a mean mandolin player. 

My favorite Christmas present this year was from my brother Jason.  He was the only person that used my Christmas Wishlist post in selecting a gift for me.  He is hooking me up with a new Wordpress blog that he is going to host on his server.  And he bought me my own domain - www.mandoron.com!  I’ve got some work to do to get things up and running over there, so look for the big switch in the next week or two.

We are looking forward to watching the OSU Cowboys play Oregon tomorrow in the Holiday Bowl.  Unfortunately, a trip to San Diego wasn’t in the Burgess budget.  Did you know that the Oregon ducks have 384 possible uniform variations?  That’s crazy!

On Wednesday, Andrea and I will be celebrating our 14th Anniversary.  I’m trying to figure out where to take her for dinner. 

On Friday, we’ll be attending a funeral.  We got a call on the day after Christmas that my step-mother’s middle son, Jay, had passed away in the night.  He was only 24.  It was unexpected and they still aren’t sure what happened.  As you can imagine, the family is in a great deal of shock.  Please pray for my step-mom Jana, and the rest of the family.

Please also pray for my brother Jason and his wife Chevy.  Chevy had a miscarriage the same day that Jay passed away.  That’s really got to suck…  It was a sad day.

I’m a little late to the Sunday Setlist party, but I’m sure you’ll get over it.

I wasn’t sure of my holiday travel schedule originally, so I made myself unavailable for Sunday.  We did end up making it back to Wichita because Andrea had to work in the nursery.

So yesterday, I joined the other worshippers in the audience.  Here is the setlist from GracePoint.

• Break Free - Hillsong
• Sing to the King - Billy James Foote/Passion
• Better is One Day - Kutless
• Give You Glory - Jeremy Camp
• Best of You - Foo Fighters
• Who Will Save Your Soul - Jewel (offering)

Break Free is a great rocker from Hillsong.  I was slightly disgusted when Gil actually started to dance during the instrumental break…  I have an appointment with my therapist on Thursday.

Sing to the King seems to have become a regular in the setlists.  Again… a great song.

Better is One Day hasn’t shown up in a while.  I really like the Kutless arrangement except for the fact that they repeat the first verse twice.  When Petra recorded it, they used a 2ndverse.  (I don’t know who wrote the verse originally.)  Petra also had some awesome harmonies…  We usually add in the 2nd verse, but I honestly don’t remember which way the band did it Sunday.

“One thing I ask and I would seek
To see your beauty
To find you in the place your glory dwells”

Also, we play it a half step higher than recorded to avoid detuning guitars…

Give You Glory also hasn’t shown up in a while.  I know a lot of people really like it, but I can’t make myself like it.  I think it drags on and on at the end.  I’m not much of a Jeremy Camp fan either…  Carlos’ bass solo was very cool though.

Best of You has been tossed around a lot over the last few years but I don’t think it’s ever actually made it in the setlist until this week.  The band rocked this one pretty good.  Gil screamed his lungs out.

Who Will Save Your Soul was also new this week.  Christina has been singing it with her band for a while, but Edge of Grace has never used it.  She nailed it.  Good song!