It's been a rather busy week. Unusually so, actually.

It was good to see Nick again on saturday, and to meet Jen. She seems pretty cool. Unfortunately, they weren't able to stay as long as originally planned and we only got to hang out for a little while.

Sunday Sheri & I went to Grandview for church. That was cool. We saw quite a few people that we knew (but hadn't seen in quite a while) and I was reminded how much I really like to hear Aaron Wymer speak.

Sunday was valentine's day, but Sheri and I don't usually do much *on* that day. Instead, we wait until the 19th - which happens to be today - to 'celebrate', since it was on the 19th ten years ago that she and I started dating. Happy Valentinanniversary to us. Or something. :-D

Monday we got to see Jerry & Amanda and little Jared as they stopped through at the Hippies' on their way home from a trip to FL. It's always cool to hang out with them, and their munchkin is exceptionally cute. I didn't have my camera with me, but I should have...

Tuesday was significant this week only in that it was the only evening I *didn't* have something going on.

Wednesday Rucht had a group of us over to watch Aliens. Prior to that time, I hadn't seen any of the Alien movies (and I still haven't seen any others). This was seen as somewhat of a problem that needed to be remedied. I enjoyed the movie and it's always cool to get together with friends.

Thursday (yesterday) was Patrick's Star Wars game. This game has been very enjoyable for me. It may be the first time I've actually had a character's personality, motives, actions, etc evolve *in game*. At Patrick's prompting, I've written up a bunch of stuff (probably more than he really wanted) for/about him with respect to his development in the story.

Tonight Sheri and I are going out to dinner and then over to see Milligan's production of Little Women - maybe not in that order...

Work has been kind of crazy lately as we're *still* trying to tie up some stuff before the end of the day... ...unfortunately, I'm currently waiting for a crucial piece of info to plug in - without which, I can't do much.

Looking ahead:

Next weekend our friend Thes is coming in for a visit and I'm supposed to run a couple of gaming sessions (after a month-long interim). That should be fun.

Also along the gaming line, Rucht is starting a Rogue Trader game next week that I'm gonna be in. I'm looking forward to this as I haven't got to play in one of Rucht's games before.

A couple weeks after that, Sheri and I are heading to AR to help her mom out after her upcoming surgery.

~PS

I think we're getting more than our fair share of snow this year. Or, more than we've ended up with the last 10 years or so anyway.

Usually I talk about my friends, my hobbies and stuff that's been happening on this thing. Not too much fits that bill lately.

Aside from picking up the acoustic from time to time (occasionally with friends), I haven't done much with 'music' lately. I have a recording or two that I could post, but I'm really not completely happy with them. In fact, I've become increasingly critical of my writing & composition. I think when I finally do get some stuff that I like recorded, it will probably be a bit different from past projects. Who knows.

I've wanted to take some pictures lately too, but I think I've photographed everything in my general vicinity and I haven't been anywhere new... ...and I haven't been particularly inspired by any 'new angles' on things available.

We've had some more scheduling conflicts with our gaming. These aren't all bad, but I'm still trying to figure out when we can play again.

We have done a little hanging out with a few friends lately. Robb & I got together to play some guitar last week and then went out for pizza (and sandwiches) and the hideously-colored Generous George's.

I've also been hanging out with Steve a bit lately, helping him record some of his songs. I've also recently dug out my Magic cards and he & I have played a few games of that. That's been fun, though I haven't been able to convince Sheri to learn it yet. I've always enjoyed that game, but most of the people I know stopped playing it quite a while back. Others I know have moved on to only playing it on the 360, but, like Carcassonne, I'd prefer to play the actual, physical game - and then there's the fact that I don't own a 360...


In other news, as she mentioned on her blog, Sheri has resigned as choir director for our church - mostly because the choir was pretty much dissolving anyway. This puts us somewhat in 'limbo' with regard to what we'll do next. It feels kind of awkward in Erwin, and we've talked about visiting some other places closer to where we live. Nothing's actually be decided though.

As she *hasn't* mentioned on her blog (as yet), Sheri's also been doing some writing. She's about 60 pages into a story, and I think she's doing a great job with it - which is why I mention it.


Work is work and, aside from a few frustrations, has been pretty good. The last month or so has been a continual swing from really busy to really slow and back again. Not too much going on at the moment, so I'm just looking over some stuff. I know some other things will be on their way to me soon, though.


~PS

Sheri, Llama and I took a trip out to North Carolina this weekend to attend our friend Kevin's wedding. It was a nice little ceremony. We're all very happy for them. Stephanie is sweet, and well suited to Kevin in a number of ways. It was good to see him so obviously happy too.

I must confess a bit of mild camera-gear-envy with respect to the photographers' toys. Also, there was a penguin cake at the reception, which was cool.

We got to see some other mutual friends there too - William and Ginger and Mike and Bethany. It's always good to see people we don't get to hang out with much (esp. Ginger who just moved away from us). We spent saturday afternoon and evening hanging out and playing games with Ginger and William. It was a lot of fun - we don't play games as much as we used to.

The car ride was a bit long, and I think Llama was starting to get a little loopy by 2am when we got home, but the trip was successfully completed.

This morning we went to Hopwood Christian Church. We had originally thought we were still going to be in NC this morning and so had arranged for Sheri to have this morning off at our church, but we ended up coming home saturday night and so decided to visit somewhere else. It was nice, actually. Jim Street had a great message about how to bless a fish (heh), and it was probably the most thought-provoking message i've heard in a while - and one that I truly thought embodies the spirit of christianity. We saw the Rosolinas (who we're still trying to have over for dinner sometime) there and also Brian West and his family (who i hadn't had a chance to talk much to in a while). Brian and Danielle invited us over for lunch, and we ended up hanging out and talking for a quite a while.

Brian is trying to get motivated to record some of his songs, and I think this is a great idea. He's been writing for a long time, and he's really into it - but most of his stuff just gets left on the page after it's written and he doesn't have any really good sounding recordings of any of it. We had a lengthy and interesting talk about the technical and artistic aspects of songwriting and recording. I really hope he does something with this. I've even offered to help with the technical stuff which intimidates him a little - not because i'm great, but because i've at least done it before. Maybe it'll get him started.

Tonight we're supposed to have a planning meeting for OotsCon '09. Our crowd this year looks a little smaller and some key people will be missing (and they will be missed), but some *other* people are able to make it this year. Hopefully it will be as successful as it's been the last two years. It's really not about the numbers, it's about the fun - there were only 13 11 of us at the first OotsCon back in '07. Hopefully we'll be able to get our plans ironed out.

My homebrew gaming system has reached Alpha status. I have just a couple more mechanical aspects to iron out, and then the first round of playtesting will begin with whoever i can get to help me out with this. I've discussed the theory of the system at some length with Sheri and Tony, and they both seemed to think it has some potential. It is definitely a bit different in its root philosophy from the games like D&D that we're used to - but I personally think these differences are a *good* thing. At whatever point the system reaches Beta, I'll be posting some more detailed info on it.


~PS

Summer has faded into fall just a bit. The weather has been awesome the last week or so - highs in the 60's & 70's. A little rain, but for the most part, beautiful. I love this time of year.

Not too much has been going on here since we got back from vacation. Just kinda getting back into the normal subroutines - so this post is pretty much just that.

Last saturday was our church's 'Block Party' event. Basically, we had food and music and were trying to get to know some random people in the community. I had quite a bit of fun taking pictures of the band. I think it went pretty well despite being relocated when it started to rain.

A few of us went to the new(ish) german restaurant in downtown JC last night. It was quite tasty, though i wasn't nearly hungry enough for the amount of sandwich i got. I thought the building itself was pretty cool - it was a corner lot of a downtown building complex(? what do you call that?) that had a kind of loft (where we sat) and a west-facing window that caught a lot of the setting sun. Our waiter was really friendly and knew what he was doing. They even had live music - a german vocalist accompanied by an accordion. It all kind of sounded the same (to me, anyway), but it was at least interesting and different. It was a pretty cool place all around i think, though i have to say the hostesses' uniforms were trying a bit too hard... ...in at least a couple of different ways.

Today was the second day of the Apple Festival in Erwin. We went out to help with our church's fundraiser - in which they let people park in the lot for said festival for $5. I think it went pretty well and raised a fair amount of money for the youth group. We walked around the festival a bit after too. I took a few pictures of the mayhem. I got a bit really sunburned through all this too.

Speaking of church, i've been trying to put together the beginnings of a website for them. Again. They've been wanting to do this forever, but, well, our church just takes a longer time getting around to certain things than other people might... ...so i thought i'd put something together and we can all go from there (instead of waiting for people to get around to giving me info).

I did notice one kind of funny thing while we were out there today: A few teenage kids were walking down the street toward the festival, and they happened upon the spot where I had parked the jeep. They stopped, and I noticed one of the kids point at the D&D sticker in my back window. I'm not sure whether they were saying "hey, look at this loser" or "who in Erwin plays d&d?" or what, but it was kind of amusing to witness.

Speaking of gaming, our last session was about a week ago. It was a good one, though almost all combat. A few things happened (or didn't happen) that may have some unforeseen consequences next session or later. That game is approaching the 1-year mark, and it continues to be very enjoyable.

I've been trying to get some work done on my gaming project. I've made significant progress and it continues to get more and more interesting, but I still have a *long* way to go. I've contemplated setting a sort of deadline for myself to help motivate me... ...though i'm not sure if that would be good or bad for the creative process.

I've been listening to commentaries on dvds i have while i work (and/or do other stuff at my desk) a lot lately. I've found that amusing/random dialog is an enjoyable acoustic background - esp when i'm here by myself. In particular, i've been listening to the ones on the Red vs Blue dvds quite a bit, as i really enjoy the creativity that went into that project. I would totally try to do something machinimish if i could think of something truly original. It would probably suck, but i think the experience of learning to do some video editing/production would be cool. I haven't done any of that since high school, and the technology has completely morphed since then.

Sheri and I have been trying to think of some christmas presents for people. This is mostly Sheri's doing, as i probably wouldn't be thinking about this for another month & a half. We're coming up a little short on ideas, but we've got one or two. And at least some time.

So anyway, that's where my stream-of-consciousness ends.

~PS

Or, you know, as real as I get.

Not too much has been going on here. Watching the grass grow. No, for real. Since i strained my calf muscle, I haven't mowed the yard - which is now really, really bad. My plan is to start tackling it later today. That's gonna be rough.

Sunday was our church picnic. I took a few great pictures of the munchkins on the playground. I'm still learning how to best shoot moving subjects - a lot of my shots are a little soft. Especially the ones of Claire. She doesn't stop moving. Anyway, it was fun. Oh, and I made lemon cheese bars for it (the first time by myself :)) which were a big hit with at least a few people. There were only two left.

Ginger, Sheri, Nick and I went out to the Elizabethton city pool on saturday. That was cool. Actually it was downright *cold*. There were only a dozen or so others in the water. I think i know why. After 5 or 10 minutes you got used to it though... ...if only because you were at that point numb and couldn't feel the cold. It was a good time though. The weather's been beautiful here: very mild for this time of year. Tomorrow's high is only 78 and the lows have been near-record.

On friday we had a fun gaming session. The party wrapped up what they had been doing in the dwarven ruin and have now traveled to the city of Madrid for more fun and mayhem. That game continues to be lots of fun.

Mahto's band had a practice on monday & I went to listen in. They sound pretty good for a highschool group. I think if they keep it together for a couple more years, they could be really good. They're actually playing at a 'Battle of the Bands' this thursday that we're gonna try to go to. That should be fun. Robb and I got to sit outside & play some guitar on monday as well. I really miss getting to play in a group. We talked for a while about trying to put something together at some point, but i think we'll need to find at least one more member.

Not too much else. Calendar's pretty blank for this month.

~PS

addendum: late last night i finally finished the graphic design for sheri's new blog - you can see it here.

Just a few random excerpts from my life this last week:

Took Ally to the vet on wednesday; made an appointment to get her spayed. That's supposed to happen on the 24th. By all accounts, she's in good health and very cute. :)

Had a game on thursday; got to use a clever riddle in a situation that actually made sense in-game. Didn't kill anyone.

Ginger made us chicken fajitas on friday and we played some carcassonne and mario kart. Much fun; very tasty.

Saturday, Sheri and I talked some about some future possible home improvement projects, went and bought flower seeds, ate chili and made Nick watch The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged. It had been a long time since I'd seen it, and it made me laugh. :)

Yesterday was the start of DST. We lost an hour, but I'm glad that there's still plenty of daylight left after work. As the days warm and lengthen, I'll have more and more time to be able to shoot outside. Looking forward to this.

We also had the usual church stuff - which we were on time for because we remembered said DST stuff. I played Brave Saint Saturn's "Estrella" for the special - and I think it sounded really good. Don't think I've ever played a song kapo'd that high (7th!).

After Sheri's usual choir practice, we met up with Dennis (aka TheGreatJabu from the OotS forum). Robb & Edie came over as well and the group of us chatted about random stuff for most of the evening. After our Bored Meetings tonight, we went to Robb & Edie's house to hang out with Dennis (before he leaves town tomorrow) by playing some Killer Bunnies. Dennis seems to be a great guy, and meshes with out little group quite well in terms of personality. If his interview with ETSU's psych. doctorate program went well enough, he may even be moving to town. That would be pretty cool.

Anyway, that's about it for now.

~PS

The last week has been pretty much "more of the same".

I did get to play golf with Joe last wednesday, though. It was about 60 here, and a beautiful day to be out on the course. Did pretty well (for me) too - par'd 3 holes, made some pretty amazing (lucky) puts, and generally we had a good time. Hopefully we'll have some more nice days to play.

I got to play/run a couple rpg's too. My thursday group is well on their way, and Robb's game (though it's losing players) continues to be a lot of fun.

Apart from that, there's pretty much just work and church stuff - the latter involving preparing for all the christmas...stuff.

~PS

So i guess when my dad points out that i haven't put up a blog post in about two weeks, I must be slacking a little. We were talking on the phone last night about another possible web project, but I'll talk more on that later when/if it pans out.

We've been fairly busy the last couple of weeks, but there's really not much to talk about.

We did go to our church's 'Trunk or Treat' thing on halloween (think: give candy out from trunks of cars in the church parking lot), which was pretty amusing. I think the best costume I saw was this little girl dressed up as Raggedy Anne. Followed closely by this boy as a pirate - complete with mustache the hung down to his chest. Those two were very well done outfits amongst the majority of walmart suits. Alas that I was unable to get pictures of them - partly because i felt a little odd taking pictures of other people's kids, and partly due to the limitations of our camera (recycle time & low-light capability (I hate flash). Talking of which, I've been looking at a lot of digital SLR's and lenses lately and reading a lot about what's good and what's not and learning a bit more about photography in general. Pretty fascinating. But, I digress...). After that, we went over to Ginger's place an hung out with some friends there for a while - which is always fun.

Apart from that, we've done some gaming (though not on "world-wide d&d day" - which was last saturday. a friend of mine was running some stuff at a local comic shop, but i didn't make it out. Other things going on. It was coolest a few years ago on the 30th anniversary anyway... but i digress again...), hung out a little at Ginger's church's coffeehouse, managed to remember the time change from DST and went to our church thanksgiving dinner. I think that pretty much brings us up to speed.

As far as upcoming events, I have 2-3(!) games this weekend (running 2, maybe playing 1), possibly swinging by Edie's birthday party, church's oh-so-exciting committee & board meetings on monday, planning to (finally) have Bart & Sarah Price (youth minister & his wife) over for dinner on tuesday, celebrating Ginger's birthday (a bit early) on wednesday and probably running another game on thursday. Keeping busy.

Don't think i've given any update/info on this point either: Ally has so far been inside for a little over two weeks. Thus far, there have been only one two "accidents" (that were probably my fault) and one case of negligible property damage (when she accidentally pulled my trackball off my desk and one of the buttons cracked. Still works though.). She seems a lot happier and less frantic (except at breakfast time) in here. Plus she keeps me company while Sheri's at work.

~PS

(Please note: that most everything in this post is extremely biased. Extremely. But hey - it's my blog, and if I can't be biased here, where can I?)

In hindsight, this whole thing would be a lot cooler if it involved a lot more gadgetry and geekdom and a lot less produce and arts & crafts. My 2c anyway.

So yeah, yesterday and friday were the days of the Apple Festival here in Erwin (where I happen to be whilst writing this). I may have been over this before, but basically Erwin's annual Apple Festival it's a lot of arts & crafts, locally grown/made apples/jam/honey/the like, and what I would personally classify as annoying quasi-professional southern gospel groups being blasted from a stage that is constructed to resemble the front porch of a log cabin (I just want to make sure you appreciate the level of 'country/redneckdom' we're dealing with here). Oh, and they have pretty much the exact same stuff there every year - so if you've been there once, there's not much of a reason to return. Please.

There is one upside to all of this however. Our church is located very near the festivities and we get to charge $5 for festival-goers to park. This is one of the best fund-raisers we have for our youth group's mission trips, etc.

So yesterday Sheri and I helped direct the parking traffic for about 4 hours. We're both somewhat sunburned to show for it, too. It really wasn't that difficult though - it was a bit slower than we might have expected. We still managed to raise a considerable amount of money, however. We speculate that if the church were on the other side of town (where most people come from) or if we at least had signs over there, we'd do much better.

~PS

I've had quite a bit of fun the last few days.

On friday I built the framework for a sort of work side-project. I'm pretty excited about this one - it'll be really cool, I think. Yes, this counts as "fun". I'm a geek like that.

On friday night we went to the coffeehouse at Ginger's church. Not much was going on, but it was cool just to hang out and talk to people. I watched some friends play Go. Interesting little board game. Some of them were also talking about the world traveling they'd done. I kinda wish I had been / could go to some cool places like that...

On saturday our dog Ally got the bath she needed. She wasn't such a fan, but she's a good little beagle and so it wasn't a terribly difficult task - even by myself. After that Sheri and I walked her around the backyard for a bit and sat in the shade (of our neighbor's tree) for a while. It was a beautiful afternoon.

On saturday night we continued and wrapped up a d&d game I'd been running for a few sessions. I think it went pretty well. I've now started some work on the two new games I'm starting. With the Liimar game and Robb's Exalted (see below), this makes 4 rpg's I'm in or running. I think I'm insane. It's a fun insane, but still...

On sunday, we went to church in Erwin as usual. I'm very glad that we have a wireless net connection at the church now - since we're kinda stuck there all day. I spent most of sunday afternoon working on putting the finishing touches on the project I mentioned working on on friday. Very excited about that. Sheri was working on choir stuff. We did go outside and play a couple of games of Kubb (which happened to be in the jeep), however.

Sunday night was also the 'all-sing' - where the area churches get together and sing together and for each other. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but Sheri's choir sounded pretty good. Plus we got to hang out with people and have snacks after.

On sunday night my mom came back through from visiting my sister in SC. I'm always glad to see family. Don't see them much since they're all quite far away.

On monday morning, mom and I went out and played 9 holes at Pine Oaks Golf Course. That was lots of fun. Beautiful morning. I played better than I think I ever have - which was pretty impressive considering it had been almost exactly 4 months since I'd played - and I played terribly that day. As it turns out, I think my grip was most of the problem. A simple tip that mom happened to mention that she saw on her video completely transformed my game. I've never had a piece of technique make such a difference. I birdied a hole for the first time ever, and I par'd the 8th and 9th. Total score for the round was 48. I could have dropped a couple strokes if i hadn't made a few chipping/putting mistakes. More than that though, my shots just felt better - more solid. Of course now I'm setting myself up to do terribly next time, since I'll be expecting much more than I was yesterday...

I also thought about how lucky I was that I have a job where I can just kinda take time off to hang out with my family if they happen to come through.

On monday (last) night, we finally got to play Robb's Exalted game. I had a lot of fun. It's a pretty interesting premise and system. Plus I get to play a shapeshifter. I have a soft spot for shapeshifters. Also, there are some people in that group that I haven't gamed with in years. I'm looking forward to continuing this one.

So yeah... ...the rest of my week looks pretty boring compared to the last several days...

~PS

So I've been hoodwinked and hornswoggled into being the chairman of the worship committee at church. I didn't even want to be on a committee, let alone in charge of it.

Here's a paraphrase of how it all went down:

A quick '"here's what went on" entry, because I have another to post -

This week's been pretty good, all things told. Pretty busy work week - working on a big project.

Sheri started her new job friday and survived her first day. Yay on both counts! :-)

Friday night we had another good gaming session. I'm reallying enjoying this particular game. It's intended to be short and contained, but I like the fact that I had almost all of the scenrio mapped out ahead of time and it's a pretty good story for a game.

Saturday we went on a picnic to Sycamore Shoals and hiked around a bit after.

Today we went out on Boone lake on a pontoon boat with some people from church - spent the day tubing and swimming and generally having a good time. Even saw some people and boats in piratety garb!

~PS

Yesterday started off early for a saturday. About 7:30am actually. I'm pretty sure that shouldn't be legal.

We got to our church in Erwin just before 9 so that we (the band) could practice a bit before everything started that afternoon. See, yesterday was our VBS 'kickoff', which we did by having a sort of all-afternoon party in the field behind the church. Among other activities, our band and another band played on the stage they had set up (which was actually a flat-bed semi trailer) and Toby grilled some hot dogs and made some other stuff.

It was pretty fun. Everyone said our band sounded great - though honestly I couldn't tell because the monitors pointed at me let me hear sam's guitar really well, and very little else. But I'll take their word(s) for it. It was pretty fun to be able to play some of our hymns a bit louder (and with more distortion :-D) than usual because it wasn't for a formal service. Not that that necessarily stops us.

We were pondering how good we'd probably be if we'd practiced more than about 6 times for this gig.

At about 6pm, the festivities wrapped up and we headed out. I was pretty tired. We played our 10-12 song set through about 4 times, and I can only sing and play for so long. Also my fingers were on the verge of serving a restraining order to my guitar strings.

I had heard a rumor that a forum friend of ours was going to be in town, so we gave Llama a call as we left. We ended up going to the home of one 'smellie_hippie' (and i got incontrovertible proof that he does exist!) to meet him and his wife and kids, and there we also met 'Ceika'. Other Playgrounders present included me, the Llama and the ArchivesNinja. We proceeded to hang out, eat ice cream and play Kubb and Killer Bunnies. Good times.

I had wanted to meet the hippie for some time, so that was cool, and I'd heard quite a bit about Ceika - especially with respect to her avatar-fu. It was really cool to get to meet people I'd seen online but never met in real life - especially when they turn out to be great people to hang out with. :-D

So by 11pm(ish) when this was all over, I was quite tired (though probably not as tired as Ceika who'd been up for about 24 hours and driven from Dallas, TX). Didn't take me any time at all to get to sleep.

Probably won't get to do anything as cool as any of that for a while...

~PS

So I guess I'm a deacon at our church now. That's pretty hilarious. I'm trying to decide if this is an indication that they just don't know me very well yet or not.

Went to my first Bored Metting last night. Trust me, that's the operative spelling.

So I'm kind of wondering how this is going to go.

For the time being I've taken up a philosophy of not saying much until I get a feel for the group. Not that I think I'll have much to say on the majority of the "issues" that are brought up. Sooner or later, however, I'm sure someone's gonna bring something up that I'm going to have a rather strong and unpopular opinion about. Then things will get...interesting.

Also, I have very little patience for beaurocracy and formality. The sheer amount of miscommunication I have witnessed baffles me. At one point there were 4 people discussing a section of the bylaws: all saying essentially the same thing, yet the no one seemed to understand any of it. After about 20 minutes of this, I considered trying to arbitrate by saying something like 'i think we're all saying X' - but I figured if they didn't understand the others by this point, they weren't going to understand me and I didn't feel like adding to the fiasco.

I'm more than willing to serve the church and our congregation in any way I can. Whether I can survive the beaurocracy with my sanity intact remains to be seen.

~PS

This is Abby Grace. When asked about me by Ginger, she has said that I am:
A) Not scary.
B) Not weird.
C) Sam.

Apparently I am considered to be Sam because I also play guitar. I love little kids. They're so cute. Abby in particular. I'm kinda bummed now that they're going to a different church and I don't get to see them every week. We did get to see them today, however.

Today was our church picnic. Despite the dreariness of parts of the day, it was a lot of fun. Sam and I got in some good practice time, we all got to swim (in very cold water), had good food, and played a 2 hour game of Purple Ball. We are, in fact, the best Purple Ball players in East Tennessee.

The rest of this weekend has been pretty good too. Warren (boss-man) took me & Brandon out for breakfast on friday. Friday night we spent with Ginger and Tony playing mario party.

Saturday, my game (finally) continued as The Party attempted not to get themselves killed by some eel-people and discover why , how and by whom an underground town had been partially flooded. Fun and mayhem.

I've also been catching up with some out-of-state friends I haven't heard from in a while. I came across at least 3 people I hadn't emailed in ages when I imported my address book to my mac. It's been cool.

~PS

ok, so i gave them a chance. i let this go a whole 2 days without saying anything, but it's just too much now.

On my way into Erwin for band practice on tuesday and thursday this week, i pass a little church across from a shopping center. This church always has really bad/cheesy messages on it's sign. (Not that all church sign messages aren't bad/cheesy, but still...) Some of you might remember a post i put up entitled "god == demeter?" about a year ago. Same church.

Their sign currently reads:

Last night was our area churches' 'Fifth Sunday Sing'. Everytime there's a 5th sunday, they all get together and sing to each other. Sometimes theres some goods ones, sometimes it's a joyful noise.

Anyway, some people decided that our newly-formed praise band should lead some congregational singing. This was a sort of pre-cursor to us leading sunday morning worship next week. As far as i could tell, it went over very well.

Quite possibly the coolest thing, however, was this:

(Preface: One idea behind the hatching of the praise band was that it might bring in some more people. Our church is rather small and the average age is probably 50 or so.)

While mark was unloading his drums, a guy saw him and pulled up outside the church to ask him what was going on. Apparently he had just moved up here from the Myrtle Beach area where he attended a church that had a band. Mark told him that we were just getting started, and that our first actual church appearance was tonight. The man thanked him, and said that he would be back that evening. And he was. We talked with him for a while afterwards. He said he really thought it was cool and that he was going to come next sunday as well.

Now, i'm not all about the idea behind christianity being getting people in your building on sundays, nor do i think finding a service you 'like' is the most important thing, but i thought this particular incident was pretty cool.

~PS

As was mentioned on the forums, last thursday was Sheri's birthday. We had a little party complete with cupcakes and yoshi. I got her a d&d player's handbook. I would say i'm a dork, but it seems that that's the present she's been most excited about.

Friday was coffeehouse night, but Sheri went caroling with some other ladies at church, so i spent most of the evening with Ginger and Tony. Ginger came over to the Rabbit Hole after work, where we proceeded to be not at all exciting for a couple of hours as i worked on some stuff, she played AOE and we talked about nothing terribly important for a while. From there we proceeded to the Lair where we met Llama. I won't say that made us more exciting necessarily, but it certainly made us more random. The three of us went out for dinner and discussed such deep questions as why ginger is unable to eat chicken nuggets while in our company (and if we could get a federal grant to research this), and how one would operate a usb toaster with passing references to our degree of normality.

On Saturday Sheri's choir had a rehearsal for their christmas program and then we came back here to game. It was great fun, though some of us are a little concerned that the pizza delivery guy may report us for conspiracy to commit arsony. Don't ask.

Sunday was the usual "stay in erwin day". This week, it was even more "stay in erwin day", since it was the 3rd of 4 possible trips to erwin within 4 days. We went to Wendy's for lunch and it was freezing because their heater had been broken for 3 days. I was amused to notice the marquee on their sign said "stay warm with a chili".

Sunday night was the Carol Sing at our church for which Sheri, Sam and I played Christmas Carols of the Rising Sun. We had quite a few compliments on it. Joel gave me a look that i interpreted to say "I really shouldn't admit that i enjoyed that, but i enjoyed that".

If you ask me, a great weekend.

~PS