Our youth minister, Phil Waggoner is the man of steel….or crazy as a loon. He’s currently on a mission trip to Honduras. My sources tell me he’ll be getting back this weekend. Then he will immediately leave to go on a door knocking campaign in Arkansas. Crazy? Yes. But I’ve heard worse. John Thomas did a youth camp right before leaving for a mission trip to Panama.
I’d like to nominate Guns ‘n Roses’ “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” as best cover song. They turned what was a 2 minute Dylan song into an epic anthem. I found a live version which is phenomenal. Axel gets the audience to sing along.
There’s an Ebay auction which just ended. It’s a 2 liter Crystal Pepsi bottle. Never opened. It sold for $13. I remember Crystal Pepsi. In fact I have an old empty glass bottle. The stuff itself was syrupy. I remember the big ad campaign for it. SNL made fun of it with a Crystal Gravy parody commercial.
Author Archives: Jeff Whittle
All That You Can’t Leave Behind
U2’s 2000 album “All that You Can’t Leave Behind” seems to be a prophesy or foreshadowing of the September 11th attacks. For example….on the cover there’s a picture of the band members waiting in an airport. You’ll remember that the attacks were done through plane hijackings. The other songs seem to be a foretelling of the attacks. Perhaps the most inspiring song on the album, “Peace on Earth,” seems to be an earnest plea to God for something which we know could never be. The lyrics echo in my mind – “They’re reading names out over the radio. All the folks the rest of us won’t get to know…” These lyrics coorespond with the names of the terror victims being read over the radio.
“Stuck in a Moment” is what the whole world seemed to be stuck in….always thinking about the attacks. Never seeming to be able to get out of it. “New York” is a song about the daily occurances in NYC.
“All that You Can’t Leave Behind” is a refreshing rock album in a sea of boybands and pseudo pop stars. It is by far the best album I’ve heard in a few years.
Speaking of albums, I was going through my CD collection and came up with a few gems. I must admit I don’t know exactly what I was thinking when I bought some of these albums. (If you don’t remember these albums/bands, don’t worry because I don’t remember them either).
- Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – Godfodder. – I really only bought this for one song on the album, Grey Cell Green, which was a buzz bin video on MTV. Apart from doing a cover of “Saturday Night” on the “So I Married an Axe Murderer” soundtrack, there’s not much to tell about this band. I think they feel off the side of the earth.
- Crash Test Dummies – Ghosts that Haunt Me…I bought the album expecting it to be just as good as the “God Shuffled His Feet.” Unfortunately without a one-hit-wonder song on it, it turned out to be a dud.
- Live – Mental Jewelry…another album I bought when I was really into “Throwing Copper” by Live. I’d listen to this album more, except that it has a line in a song which goes something like this….“Heard alot of talk about this Jesus…but what a man was two thousand years ago means nothing to me today.” I can’t stomach that kind of attitude.
- EMF – Stigma….That one hit wonder band (“Unbelieveable”), came back with this album. I think it is possibly the least listened to album of my collection. Buncha skater punks.
- Jesus Jones – Perverse….another one hit wonder (“Right Here Right Now”) I was trying to get more songs for. Rarely listened to.
- Green Day – Dookie….It seemed like a good idea at the time. I think at one point in the summer of 1995, everyone had this album. Now it’s just a joke. Green Day itself is a joke band. Except for “Time of Your Life” and perhaps “Minority” I don’t think they’ve come out with any redeemable songs. I should have known better than to buy an album named after a euphemism for excrement, which also has a muppet dancing on the back.
I really should sell these albums on Ebay or something, but it probably isn’t worth my time or trouble.
So the theme of the upcoming camp is “Kids for Christ.” Each day we will spotlight a different person of the bible such as Samuel, David, Daniel, Timothy, and Jesus. I already knew alot of Jesus, Daniel, and David. I had to brush up on my knowledge of Samuel and Timothy. All of this just in case I’m called upon to do a brief devotional on the subject. I don’t want to be looking stupid.
Worrying about Dumb Things
Sometimes I find the dumbest things to worry about. Case in point. I’ve got this camp coming up next week. I’m a bit anxious and worried about it. Worried about things going smoothly. Worried about the weather. Sometimes I just need to put my worries aside and let God take over.
I am in charge of the camp relay races Tuesday night. I’ve been trying to come up with all the ideas I can for it. I went shopping today for the items for some of the races. Cheese balls and shaving cream, jellybeans, balloons, Lifesavers and toothpicks….. I know I’ll have to do some last minute shopping, even at a grocery store in Kentucky right before I get to camp.
I did go to Hilo Hatties today and picked up a Hawaiian shirt. The only problem is I got the wrong size. Stupid me thought that I wore a large in knit shirts. Not so. It’s more like a medium or small even. So back to Hatties I go. I love Hawaiian stuff. Someday I’m going to have a tiki bar in my house. Gilligan Island style…..
Old Friends
I ran into Josh and Beth at Kmart yesterday. As it turns out they have bought a house back behind Kmart. Looks nice. I was surprised to find that they had decided to get a house. It has been months since we got together to do anything. Months since we even talked. Many times friends in general give the excuse of being too busy, but many times we just don’t put any effort into doing things together.
Mark Price? Well he might has well have fallen off the face of the earth. Living in Arizona and his lack of response to emails has not motivated me enough to try to track him down. Plus he goes to China seemlingly every other month.
It does help if friends make an effort to use instant messaging programs. This type of pseudo communcation is pretty easy to come by. It is a good substitute for the phone. I’ve been able to plan entire trips over instant messaging and emails.
Here’s something obvious: Pastors make the worst websites. Big gaudy animated crosses.
Melissa’s weblog is down. I’ve been trying to get her to fix it, but somehow I haven’t been able to make myself clear.
Do I really care if India and Pakistan have a nuclear war? Well it is somewhat on my mind. In a weird sort of way, maybe usage of nuclear weapons would remind people of the horrible destruction this can cause. India and Pakistan are like two kids fighting over a piece of candy. And Kashmir isn’t even that sweet. It would matter if Kashmir had a boatload of oil or something.
Praying Year Round
This year we have a project going at church where each day a certain member is assigned to pray privately for all the members of the congregation. Each member is mentioned by name in the prayer. On any given Sunday there are around 600 people attending church. So you’d think out of that 600 people, you could find 365 people willing to participate in this praying project. Not so. I’ve already been assigned to participate in April and now in June I’m already assigned again. This just goes to show that out of any church group there are probably only about 1/5th of the congregation that actually does anything. The rest will try to get by in just attending church on Sunday morning and choosing not to participate in any extra activities. They still feel good about themselves since technically they are “church goers,” yet they do nothing to give to the congregation. Mostly they are looking to be served rather than serving others.
In other news….
Lindsey Smith took down her webpage. She said it was too difficult to keep updated with fresh information. No big deal, but it seems like at some point everyone wants a webpage. Then later on, when they find it actually takes some effort to keep up, rather than have it turn into a static webpage, they abandon it or take it down completely. I did save her webpage to my hard drive in November, so I do have a copy of it, even slightly outdated.
Chandra Levy
Just out of pure curiousity why was Chandra Levy’s funeral open to the public? The only reason why her funeral was open to the public was to keep her murder case in the forefront of the public’s eye. Even famous people who made a real difference do not have public funerals. What makes Chandra special? Did Chandra herself change the world? No. I’d like to remind people that Chandra herself is not exactly innocent. She did choose to have an affair with Senator Gary Condit, which may have led to her ultimate demise. Chandra is one of those people who is more famous dead than alive.
Nortel is cutting 3,500 jobs. I don’t think I’ll be part of it. At least I hope not. Mostly it is supposed to be the optical division. Anyways it’s not something I can worry about. It’s something I can’t control so why worry?
“We are building a religion….”
“We are building a religion….” are the opening lyrics to Cake’s song “Comfort Eagle.” A friend of mine has a theory that it is making fun of televangelists. Regardless of what it exactly means, it’s a good song. I discovered it at the Cake concert and have been listening to it frequently ever since.
The worst part about camping was the cold showers. No matter what time I tried to take one, I always got lukewarm water. The times I tried were 7AM (obvious that it would be cool after everyone took a shower that morning), then again at 2PM (still cool). I don’t know when someone is supposed to take showers. They definitely need to give the water heater a bigger water capacity.
The best part about camping was sitting around late at night by the campfire talking to everyone. You learn alot about the people you’re with just by being with them for an entire weekend.
Fall Creek Falls….the crown jewell
Fall Creek Falls….the crown jewell of the state’s park system.
Camping
I went camping over the weekend with about 15 families from church. Everyone seemed to have a good time. No major occurances happened. Weather was relatively nice….a bit cool in the evenings, but warm enough in the middle of the day. It did rain Sunday afternoon when we were just getting back from hiking. Our tent stayed nice and dry inside. It was sorta muddy outside for a while.
We had 91 people present for our worship services Sunday morning. Gradually everyone but a few families left Sunday afternoon and night. I stayed just long enough on Monday morning for the rest of us to pack up and then go to the cascades. Ate at Pizza Hut in Sparta on the way back.
I brought back 2 tents, a foldup chair, and a picnic table awning from camping. The owner of the tents decided not to take them back home since they were wet from the rain. The tents may have been 10 years old, but they were good anyways. We have them set up in our backyard to air out.
Cake Rocked
It’s late. Just got back from that Cake concert. “We are Cake and we are ready to serve you” was the quote from the lead singer tonight. Look for a review of the concert soon. Todd Burka, who went with me, knows everyone. He saw about 10 people he knew tonight. Whereas I thought I saw one person whom I worked with at the Lipscomb computer helpdesk.
More than likely you won’t hear a peep from me on this weblog until Monday. Campsites, although full of life’s modern appliances, still do not have access to the internet. So unless someone brings a laptop and phone connection to Fall Creek Falls, don’t look for updates.
I’ve just got to slow down for a bit before going to sleep. I can’t come in from being out and immediately go to sleep. I need some down time before going to bed. Hence this late night weblog entry.