Archive for the ‘life’ Category
If I could only listen to one song for the rest of my life…
I love music. Always have. It’s been a journey for me, including a full blown purge about 10 years ago of about 800 cassettes and CD’s -- as contemporary Christian music had become legitimized in my perspective, I wanted to be reborn musically… Jars of Clay was the group that truly made me feel that the Christian music movement had truly become worth listening to. Been a fan since the “Flood” and this past spring thanks to my bride we got to finally catch a live show and meet the group after more than a decade of missed opportunities.
This next one is a favorite picture I took from that show, primarily because my lovely bride and youngest kiddos have some of the best “not-seats” in the house sitting back there on the steps…
Anyway, here you go… my favorite version of my favorite song. This is “Frail” from the fan club exclusive CD “Stringtown,” a great disc of live and unique performances.
Enjoy.
Some of my own “motivation.”
I enjoy creating my own “motivational” posters…
This one is the most recent, for my OBS brothers:
I’m not much for “clubs”… but
…I am a member of the Order of the Black Shamrock.
“The aims and goals of this order are to promote and uphold the virtues of the Noble Warrior, the undying worth of the ideals of chivalry, and to espouse the value and worthiness of these ideals to those who would take interest in them. Members of the Order are entrusted with the noble charge of passing this legacy to the next generations, our youth, our sons and our daughters. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s old is new again…
I recently got a double edged razor – a Merkur 38C to be specific… and had my first “real” shave ever last night… I’m sold on wet/method shaving… Can’t believe I’ve never tried it in 25+ years of shaving. No more beards in my future… too nice having a smooth shave!
As promised, The Church of the Wandering Stream
The Church of the Wandering Stream
(From Fishing Music II, by David A. Thompson, Woody Overtones Music, ASCAP)
Where do you go if you’ve lost all direction?
…and where do you go when you’re feeling alone?
I know a place that can bring you redemption.
It’s almost like heaven, but it feels like home.
It isn’t far if you know where you’re looking,
just head down the road and head out of town.
Fishing Music II
I’ve enjoyed the first fishing Music CD for years – since it came out in 2003, actually… and have been PATIENTLY waiting for the next one. Six Years… (OK, it’s about time, guys.) ANYWAY, it’s here, and on iTunes, to boot! Great job on another album, and thankfully, the sophomore CD doesn’t stink! LOL… Actually, it’s pretty good. Really good. OK, Great.
The second Fishing Music is a departure from the first – it feels more like you’re sitting around a campfire with some really talented folks who share the love of fishing the fly with you, and take turns singing – it’s a laid back, easy sound, and reminds me of another favorite album of mine – Rancho Relaxo from Troll for Trout.
As always, I have an immediate favorite song – The Church of the Wandering Stream. The lyrics for that will be posted here shortly. It embodies things I’ve tried poorly to express in my own writing about what fishing is and does for me… I posted that piece here as well, I call it “Ramblings of a Steelheader.”
This album is a terrific little personal departure for me – in my headphones, I am whisked away from this dry, brown, salmonid-free wasteland that I now live in, and am transported back to places I have lived and have found the most relaxing, fulfilling and closest to finding my God in his creation. One specific time comes to mind - my oldest son’s first “real” fly trip… There is a song that fits that here, as well. “Old Bamboo” is a poignant remembrance of a father through his son’s connection with his Dad’s bamboo rod… There’s always time to take one more cast…
Read the rest of this entry »
I was thinking of seeing this… not so much now…
I felt bad that my kids were home last night (their own choices) while a huge number of their youth group friends went to see Transformers… Then I saw a post from our old youth minister from Oregon saying it was “TERRIBLE.” Brian tries to influence his youth group’s media intake, so I trust him… and did a little digging on my own. Here is a little review from a site I use as a first level barometer for these things.
Make your own choices…
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
from pluggedinonline.
When last we saw Megatron—the evil head honcho of a race of machines dubbed the Decepticons—he was rusting away at the bottom of the ocean, tethered by high-tech chains, surrounded by guardian submarines and counting the days until his obsolescence.
Too bad the guy had some time left on his extended warranty.
When did we get so soft?
My son has been posting some deep, dark, and serious lyrics to his facebook. He is a huge fan of the Christian metal group Demon Hunter. They pull no spiritual punches, and drive it home screaming and with driving hard music. Even if you’re not a fan of the musical genre, his posts and some fairly recent seemingly disparate events have helped me see that we have become soft believers. Now, to be clear, his posts are not about “Worship Music.” I seriously doubt that Demon Hunter would fly even for my son as appropriate for worship service. We choose to strictly limit our consumption of secular music in my family for many, many reasons. We listen to decidedly Christian music nearly all of the time, in many genres. I like the Demon Hunter as well, but am also very eclectic in my musical tastes. I’ll usually take the metaphorical musical metal broadsword of the spirit and breastplate of righteousness over the pop versions – which for me are musically akin to the letter opener of the spirit and pocket protector of righteousness. I find worthiness in many genres of Christian music today – but am concerned.
Some recent Tweets I found really insightful…
“Head of FDIC assures banks they are too big to fail – What about small businesses, are they too small to save?”
“Obama budget cut of $17 billion is less than 1/2 of 1% of the entire $3.55 trillion FY10 budget – is that change we can believe in?”
Flashback!
I was going to write on a topic that is heavy on my mind of late… but this old post should do for now.
Christian Blue Man meets Steampunk…
Welcome to the White Collar Side Show.
I really enjoy this group. They don’t treat issues with kid gloves, but face them head on, and with drumsticks. I love that approach…
Facebook status…
status
(stāt’əs, stā’təs)
[stey-tuhs, stat-uhs]
–noun
1. the position of an individual in relation to another or others, esp. in regard to social or professional standing.
2. state or condition of affairs: Arbitration has failed to change the status of the disagreement.
3. the standing of a person before the law.
–adjective
4. conferring or believed to confer elevated status: a status car; a status job.
Origin: 1665–75; < L: the condition of standing, stature, status, equiv. to sta- (var. s. of stāre to stand ) + -tus suffix of v. action
I’ve stopped putting my “Status” on Facebook. Again. At least serious ones that actually have anything to do with my actual thoughts about life, the universe, or anything. It’s just not worth it. It seems to me that Facebook has become everyone’s platform for their personal edification, or their cause, political views, and, more disturbingly, for people to place their own comments about and in reaction to HAVING those opinions if they even remotely differ from their own… If that’s not enough, some find such self importance on the site to tell you that your opinion “looks bad” or is wrong, or worse, to question your integrity and motivation. Thus why this little note is here rather than anywhere else… Read the rest of this entry »
Catching up, with pictures…
I can’t believe how the time just keeps ticking, ticking… in to the future… How long ago was THAT on the radio? That said, what follows is a small photo journey of what we’ve been up to! Enjoy.
Thankful, again…
For the third year running, we spent our Thanksgiving morning and early afternoon serving a meal to anyone who came to our tent out at North Austin Christian Church – right next door to a number of low-income apartment complexes. It is really a grounding experience, and one that our kids have come to expect us to do. I’m so happy that this is now “normal” for our family Thanksgiving. The picture above is Suzie holding a sweet child that she also took care of last year as a newborn… Her Mommy remembered Suzie from last year, and Suzie talked to her and her extended family at length.
Christmas card picture time…
It’s that time of year… the time when I break out the remote for the camera and take pictures of the whole fam… from the wrong side of the camera. It’s a pain, but a fun family event as well, which makes everything cool. These are some shots with me on the correct side of the camera and the kids on their best side as well. Enjoy!
Creation festival – the tour…
I took the older kids and a guest of Noah’s to the Creation Festival Tour last week. What a great show… I was a fairly avid secular concert goer in HS and college – none of the festivals (Days on the Green, and Mountain Aire, and the like…) can hold a candle to these…
Down under with the boys…
With some extended family in town, the boys and I went down (literally) in to a local cave (“Inner Space Caverns” in Georgetown Texas) with them… I have wanted to visit this cave for, well, almost four years now. I have always enjoyed caves, and I think the boys have the bug now too.
Going down… the rest of the post is some cool pictures!
Daddy’s little girls…
We were at Disney World when the “Father Daughter Banquet” was happening for our Dads and girls at Church, so I took my gorgeous baby girls on a date after we returned. Cheesecake Factory, Beverly Hills Cihuahua, and my babies. It doesn’t get much better. Needless to say, we dressed up! The rest of the post is photos of my sweeties!
A few sprayscape pics…
A few weeks ago we had a fun little time with the younger kids at a local sprayscape… some quick shots to post…
I’ve been remiss…
Some posts are in the works… in the mean time, here are a couple pictures from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Regatta…
Found this via a friend today.
Wow. Found this via a “friend” who just opened up a VERY cool business – Christian Speculative Fiction Publishing. Go visit Marcher Lord Press. Buy a book.
The image is original artwork by Todd Mueller: http://web.mac.com/toddmueller/
WDW: Turning 17 on a family holiday…
There will likely be a few posts over the next few weeks as I get to it about the trip… First off, I have to give props to Noah. He was the victim of so many Disneyish shenanigans sessions this trip (see the youtube post I made earlier, for example…) , as he turned 17 in the middle of it. How many 17 year old’s even WANT to go on family vacations? He was so fun to hang with, and was a huge help, too. Now that we are officially a family of six since Emmy is older than 5, we had to get two rooms – he and Han shared a room to themselves. (Nobody said 17 didn’t have perks.)
Of course, he was made to wear an “It’s My Birthday!” badge all week, so everyone knew – especially at the restaurants. The first day we were there, he was made to wear the hat that was part of our server’s costume… Read the rest of this entry »
The “creative” WDW picture selections…
Are in my photo albums: Click!
Almost forgot…
There are some great videos of Noah’s birthday at the Whispering Canyon Restaurant in the hotel we stayed at on my youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/gusstrand
Instant gratification…
I may get around to writing about it, but that would likely just bore you… so here are the pictures from a week at Walt Disney World…
A few quick kid shots…
Friday night we did the usual dinner thing and headed over to “the cows” for ice cream and wandering. I took my old 75-300 Tamron lens out to see if it still worked… It’s a 35mm format, so the focal lengths are off for the digiSLR. The focal length thing is actually not a problem, but I’m not at all happy with the lens performance. Regardless, I pulled some OK pictures out of the bunch. It’s hard to mess up pics with such an adorable family… Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
Owwww! My hands hurt! (Thanks, Noah!)
My eldest goatboy took me down to the rock climbing walls yesterday. My hands hurt and I have no grip today. We had a lot of fun. Thanks, buddy! Oh, and I also found out my son is a pool shark while we were waiting for an open time slot to climb… next time, your allowance is on the line, boy! Read the rest of this entry »
Friday night of Labor day weekend… Austin fun!
Friday nights we try to go out to eat – this week it was Chuy’s Green Chile Festival, so we had to go there… no complaints here! We went to the Barton Springs location, and decided that since we were close to downtown we would have some fun down there.
We took a little side trip to REI where Han scored some new Reef flip flops for eight bucks a pair, then hunted down some dessert. Read the rest of this entry »
They’re baaaaAAACK!
Back to school, that is… Suzie is doing it again… for over a decade now she has educated our children at home. This is the first year that all four are in school. My wife is AMAZING. She is teaching a Senior in High School and a Kindergartner. I have to give her all of the credit and praise – our kids’ success is completely her success, and it IS success. She puts up with moody teens, siblings being siblings, me being at work, and the fetal pig and sheep heart (among other things) that are in the cabinet downstairs awaiting their need for Noah’s AP Biology/Human Anatomy class… Read the rest of this entry »
He’s seven. It’s past time…
Ethan is learning to shoot. The pellet gun is still a bit big, but we bought a backyard pellet trap a few days ago so he can shoot in to it. Living in Texas makes things like this much more difficult. We can’t just go out to the woods or local BLM tract and do it – the near complete lack of public land here makes hunting and fishing-type pursuits more exclusive to the masses by requiring often that one pay for a lease just to walk in the woods… But we will make it work. Where there is a will, there is of course a way. Go figure, our backyard is basically exactly twenty meters deep, so when he decides to get really serious…
Ethan’s having a lot of fun, and Noah is joining us in the backyard when we go out – I am enjoying the time with my sons, doing “boy things.”
Happy Birthday!
My daughter is now my sister. I am so very proud of her, and I didn’t cry when I baptized her (at least until afterward.) Hannah, Daddy loves you. Did I say I am so very, very proud of you?
Since we broadcast church services over the internet, we were able to get a DVD of this – Han’s baptism was so awesome. Watch it for yourself!
Birthday music…
Part of my birthday gift from wonderful wife was an iTunes card. Timely, as I have been wanting to get this album – Salvation Station from New World Son. Down home Christian Blues Funk, baby… Cool stuff.
Check out the video for “Working Man” on youtube, and their website: http://www.newworldson.com
Last Monday of the summer with God’s children…
Monday was the last day of the summer “Fiesta” and the backpack giveaway. Enjoy the photos of some of the kids! Read the rest of this entry »
My American Girl
You’re turning five and are asked “What do you want to do for your birthday?” Most kids want a rowdy party with about 200 of their closest friends. My baby wants to go shopping at the “American Girl Store” which happens to be up in Dallas… so off we went! Read the rest of this entry »
Not many people can say that after 20 years and 4 kids…
The old man and his child bride… (photo by Noah!)
My wife still fits in her wedding gown. Twenty years and four kids later. Frankly, she’s in better shape now than then, and has gotten younger. I on the other hand am not aging so gracefully. I was downstairs last night after Suzie and I got back from our “Anniversary Date” (a terrific fresh seafood dinner @ McCormick & Schmick’s) when I heard the girls giggling, and low & behold they had dug Suzie’s wedding gown out of my closet. It seems Emma was asking about anniversaries and getting married… so we had a great time with the gown Read the rest of this entry »
Monday’s children of God…
Last night was the last evening of the summer for Fiesta. Next week there will likely be many more of the congregation there, as it’s a “coin in metal plate service event” when we distribute backpacks for school. Those folks have no idea what they have missed this summer and the past few – these kids are such a blessing to us – yes, we help them, but the return is so much greater. There are kids every year that you get to know, and expect to see there. Sweet little blessings. These are some photos from last night, including “JD the Condiment Ninja.” Oh yes, it was HOT, but this is Texas, right?
She said “I do.”
Twenty years ago tomorrow, on 8/6/88, she said “I do.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Mo ’08
We just returned from “Mo Ranch” – the annual family camp trip with the Church… This is the second year for us – I posted about Mo last year as well. This year we knew what to expect, and even though we still aren’t alumni of the college du clique, we had fun in spite of it! The kids all had a blast. It was fun just hanging with my gorgeous bride and our kiddos in the river and at the pool. Suzie is really amazing. It was a good time to get to know some good folks better (Monica…!) and to strengthen some friendships. It was also a great time for me to contemplate the blessings I have in my family. A beautiful, thoughtful and generous wife, four healthy kids each with their own gifts and strengths, and my own health.
I am VERY proud of my older kids for being their own people, making good judgments on how to behave acceptably and not following the poor examples (like lemmings off of a bridge, for one) of the leaderless hive mind of the majority of the current crop of teenagers.
In addition to the following pics, I took some short videos, including singing at the late night chapel service, and Han and her friends hamming it up… (all of the videos and other non-Mo are at my youtube, here.)
Here are a few selected images. Enjoy!
More thoughts on Music…
Most of the postings here might tell you I like my music loud, hard, and christian. That’s true for the most part. That said, I have pretty wide and eclectic tastes – check out the past video playlist post for some cool stuff.
I also enjoy what I would call Christian Electronica/Dance. I enjoy Redsavior (now gone,) and some other indy groups and tracks from the genre, and likely the most accepted purveyor of the positive beat, Andy Hunter. Who is Andy Hunter? Read the rest of this entry »
Needed a new profile photo for facebook…
gimp is your friend,
photoshop is a lie.
make your one phone call to adobe.
download gimp,
learn new magic tricks…
Another Monday with God’s Children
This week it was HOT. It was also cool to see some friends out this week – check out my buddy Kobe above – he was the cookie man this week. Noah was chipboy again, and Han, well, she and her budz were the Condiment Princesses again.
As usual, the neighborhood children were there en masse, and had fun, food and fellowship. These kids are the reason we go out there. Enjoy this week’s pictures. Read the rest of this entry »
Downtown
Downtown! I remember the song from “Little Shop of Horrors,” a favorite movie of mine… (YOU’LL be a DEN-tist!) but the song was originally from Petula Clark in 1965.
“You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go Downtown… ”
We did just that a couple weeks ago. Suzie had read about this new fountain installation at Butler Park in downtown Austin - it’s one of those “in-ground with L.E.D. lights” fountains for kids to play in – supposedly there are 25 sequences of light and water, changing every 15 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »
The best pics from Saturday…
The guy with the camera is telling you something, Ma’am…
Took a couple hundred pictures while out with the family… no need to add much text. They speak for themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
Some pics from Saturday…
We were at the capitol this weekend, took some shots of a very over photographed capitol dome, hopefully they’re interesting… I enjoy the flow and feel of the concentric arcs and the atypical non-straight up shot… the geometry of the architecture lends itself so well to various interpretations…fun fun. Read the rest of this entry »
Exploring Austin: Mount Bonnell and Mayfield Park
We’ve lived here almost four years, and decided to hunt for some new cool stuff recently. Suzie found the urban “hike” to one of the highest points in town recently and a couple weekends ago we decided to try it. Mount Bonnell is not really a hike as much as it’s a long set of stairs, but it is a cool vista at the top. We found a geocache on the hill, and enjoyed the view. Read the rest of this entry »
Another week of Fiesta!
This past Monday we did the usual and headed over to NACC to help out. The “craft” this week was soccer balls for the kids. I think we barely avoided a food riot when distributing them. The kids REALLY liked them. It gives you a dose of perspective seeing how excited and crazy these kids get over a five dollar soccer ball. We take so much for granted.
I had a great time focusing on Emmy this week. She takes her cookie distribution job VERY seriously. I’m so proud of all of my family…
It’s how you live.
I never thought I would post Point of Grace lyrics…but you know, these are so very TRUE… Suzie listens to this often as POG is her long favorite group. I was pondering it the other day, and she actually also really lives this song, and I can learn from that. I pray that we’re teaching our kids that what you have and who you might know really don’t matter in life.
This has come to the forefront lately with two kids in High School, and ironically shows most where we worship.
The kids (and we) often get what I call the “Purple party line” about attending a particular private Christian University that, outside of our Church and subsequently outside of Texas is one of many small, decent but average private schools, and the expected path of education for kids in the youth group. Every fall, like 18 year old preprogrammed purple lemmings, Read the rest of this entry »
networking
