What’s rattling around in my head right now…

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.

Sunday Setlist for December 14,2008

I’m a little late to the party, but hopefully there is still some fun to be had…  This week’s installment in the Fred McKinnon Sunday Setlist extravaganza is tardy due to some serious birthday party fun on Sunday followed up by Jett’s actual birthday yesterday…

So without further ado, the setlist from GracePoint:

• Joy to the World by Family Wise Music (Jingle Jam CD)
• Repeat the Sounding Joy by Family Wise Music (Jingle Jam CD)
• Wholly Yours by David Crowder Band
• My Savior My God by Aaron Shust
• Yesterday by The Beatles
• Let It Be by The Beatles (offering)

All in all, a pretty fun Sunday.

Joy to the World was a rocked up version.  All of the K-5 kids came up on stage and danced for the first two songs.  They were hilarious to watch. Ed has posted a video on Facebook, but you may have to be Ed’s friend to see it…  I’ll try to prod him into putting one out in the public domain.  It’s a cool version.  I like it. 

Repeat the Sounding Joy was another amped up song that the kids danced to.  Rod had to do some heavy sampling on the keys to pull this one off, but it was solid.

Wholly Yours is one of my favorite DCB songs.  We always play the ending like it is on the radio version, and not the longer ending off the album.  It was perhaps a little mellow to start the off the abbreviated worship set with.

My Savior My God is another good one.  I love the dynamics of the song.  Apparently I enjoyed it a little too much because I broke a string on this song during the second service.  The remaining three strings didn’t leave me much to work with…  I was late getting in to listen to the sermon in order to replace the string.  (Thanks for letting me borrow your wire cutters Bruce!)

Yesterday continued in the Beatles-themed series “Let It Be Christmas”.   In the original recording, the guitars are detuned a whole step, so we played it a step higher, in G, to avoid detuning… 

Let It Be was used for the offering.  It was pretty solid.  Rod’s Hammond came in handy.  And Bruce nailed the guitar solo.  This was my first time to actually play with Bruce.  Very cool guy.

Christmas Wishlist

I thought I’d share my Christmas Wishlist with you before I send it on to Santa.

First and foremost, I’d like to replace my 1996 Lumina with a new car.  Preferably a Mazdaspeed 3.

But I’d also take a Volvo C30

Or a Subaru Impreza WRX

And a customized license plate that says “MNDORON”.  It would look good on a new car.

A new custom-designed WordPress blog theme. I’m thinking about going away from the free WordPress.com thing to a self-hosted WordPress blog, but I don’t want to put the time and effort into it.  Now if someone were to take care of it as a Christmas present for me… now that would be cool.

To expand my musical horizons… an oval hole mandolin, something relatively inepensive like this Eastman 604 would be fine as long as it has been Mandovodoo’d.

A five-string electric mandolin.  I like the Mann SEM-5 Electric Mandolin with a cool custom finish.

A new Acoustic-Electric guitar.  Not sure what brand/model, as long as it’s nicer than my Ibanez, sounds good, and looks cool.  I’m willing to trade the Ibanez in to defray some of the expense for Santa.

You can’t go wrong with an itunes gift card.

Boss DD-6 Digital Delay pedal

Boss NS-2 Noise Supressor pedal

Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer pedal

Rock Band 2 for the Wii.  Not that I have a Wii, but you never know what the kids will get for Christmas…

A firewire recording interface like the PreSonus Firebox to improve my home recording capability.

Some new socks and underwear wouldn’t hurt either…

Share-It Saturday, October 4

Welcome to the first October installment of Share-It Saturday. Enjoy the links.

• This speaker is loud enough to melt your earwax!
• And just in case you were wondering… Top 10 Loudest Noises.
• Incredible video from Fellowship Church of the song “New Creation”.  If you ignore all the other links, check this one out.
• Free download of the song “Starling” from one of my favorite bands, Brave Saint Saturn.
• Even George Washington is worried.
• The 5 stages of emailing friends an unintentionally funny Christian video courtesy of Stuff Christians Like.
• If you’re shopping for a relatively inexpensive electric mandolin, check this guy out.  I don’t know anything about them, but I really like the look of the baby blue one on his website.

Hump Day Happenings

Andrea and Jada are watching Dancing With the Stars because the Jonas Brothers are making an appearance.  I wasn’t interested until they came on and one of them was playing electric mandolin, an 8-string Epiphone Mandobird.

Wednesdays alway make me think of Eskimo Joe’s.  Every Wednesday they have the Hump Day Special, and you can Little Joe burgers cheap.  Two of those and some cheese fries and you’re good to go!

The cool (and edgy) people over at Deadly Viper have a new thing going called Love Takes Balls.  This is all part of their People of the Second Chance campaign.  I’m honestly struggling with this a bit.  I agree with the spirit of it.  But my Southern Baptist upbringing is welling up.  I can’t say that I’d be comfortable wearing a t-shirt with the logo on it. 

I’m working on a couple of cool things for the blog.  In order to get some “real” content (which I’ve been struggling with as of late), I’ve invited a couple of people to write some guest posts.  Should be some cool stuff coming in over the next month.  I’m also pondering a recurring Musician Monday where I interview musicians.  Stay posted.