Some of my favorite worship songs

Here's a few of my other favorite worship songs we do at our church:

• Delirious' Rain Down (the 1st 10 seconds is just a title slide -- not part of the real song)
• Delirious' Majesty / Here I Am (chorus is very powerful)
• Chris Tomlin's Let God Arise
• Chris Tomlin's How Can I Keep from Singing (nice buildup at the bridge that begins at about 2:40 mark)
• Chris Tomlin's Amazing Grace / My Chains Are Gone (song written for the 2006 movie about the early American slave trade called "Amazing Grace" ... Tomlin adds his own chorus that's very nice).
• Chris Tomlin's Not To Us

Great new song we just did this Sunday

OK, maybe we should change the name of our church from "Cathedral of Praise" to "Cathedral of Tomlin", since we do so many of his songs. I just can't help it -- he tends to write so many clear, beautiful songs that really capture what's in my heart that I want to sing out ... kind of like Rush Limbaugh does for political stuff, Chris Tomlin does for worship songs.

Anyway, we did a great new song this Sunday morning called "Glorious" ... see below for a really cool performance of this at some conference called "Passion" in 2006 ... I really like the lady Christy Nockels' voice -- I have not heard of her before. I'm not familiar with the Passion conferences -- maybe I should look into them more and try to attend one -- they look awesome!

Bitter clingers, my next "original" bumper sticker idea

Since my "original" idea for a NOBAMA bumper sticker turned out to be not-so-original, maybe I can follow that up with my next great idea for a bumper sticker:

Bitter Clingers for McCain / Palin

Happy Labor Day weekend ... The tequila isn't working!

So my wife is off for her big birthday weekend with her girlfriends while I'm with my kids all weekend. Hmmm, was that a bad sign that Natasha, Corey, and Jennifer didn't have their wedding rings on when they left to go out last night?

Anyway, the tequila I gave the kids really hasn't kept them as calm as I'd hoped. They're still bickering with each other over toys, etc. I guess they're kind of "angry drunks" when they have tequila!

(I'm just kidding, by the way --I've loaded them up on Benadryl, not tequila).

(Kidding again)

We're off in a few minutes to drive around ... maybe go to a park or restaurant for lunch. Happy Labor Day weekend!

On years of "experience" for public office

There's this line of political stories going on about whether Obama or Palin is "experienced" enough to be President or VP. I don't really buy into that whole theory that much.

While I don't think someone should be President who's never really held any kind of public office (there's kind of a minimum needed), both Obama and Palin have pretty high level office experience.

No, to me, the issue is, "where does the candidate stand on the issues I care about?" If they support the issues I care about and support my views, to me that significantly trumps number of years of experience being WRONG (in my opinion) on an issue. Biden has many years of being in the Senate / foreign relations committee / etc. But I don't support his positions on issues, so why would the experience of many years of being WRONG on an issue be a positive?

I'm sure many of my friends (and extended family) who are more liberal don't feel that McCain's years of experience matter -- they care about that McCain doesn't support the issues in the way that they think Obama does.

McCain picks Alaska governor Sarah Palin for VP

This is pretty cool. While I would rather the actual nominee for President (not just VP) be a real conservative (and not someone, say, who's been duped by the gore-bull warming crap), this VP choice is great from my standpoint. One of the things libs always wrongly accuse conservatives of is being racist and sexist -- by just assigning labels and calling names they don't have to address the actual issues and arguments with intellectual debate. So it's pretty ironic that the GOP could end up with the first woman in the White House that's not a First Lady. She supports drilling in ANWR (which, unfortunately, McCain does not). See link here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080830/D92SIC400.html

It's funny how the media / libs wanted McCain to pick Leiberman and be a "maverick". But if the libs are who we're trying to defeat in the election, why should McCain pick a VP candidate that said libs would PREFER?

Personally, I wouldn't mind if Palin and McCain switched spots on the ticket...

Sept 2008 postscript / final thoughts / reflections from 1998 Grand Canyon / California Trip

Postscript, September 2008
Well, since this trip memoir was written, I have married Natasha (May 2001) and had two beautiful kids, Daniel (2003) and Lauren (2004). I would definitely love to take my family on a Grand Canyon hike someday. With us having kids very soon after getting married, we have not yet traveled as much as I would like. However, we will definitely do more of that as the kids get older. I don’t want my kids to have to wait until their mid 20s to be able to see some of the great stuff I’ve seen.

It was an interesting experience taking Natasha to the Grand Canyon for the first time. When we were dating (about 9 months before we got married), we took a 2-week vacation to Arizona and Colorado in the summer of 2000. We went first to Durango and the Ouray area, then went to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Because my first experience in the Canyon was so moving for me personally, and because I’d seen other folks have such emotional reactions to seeing the Canyon for the first time, I had really hyped up the Grand Canyon to Natasha, and sort of expected her to have a similar emotional experience. One thing I hadn’t considered, though, was that we were coming to the Canyon after already seeing the spectacular mountains of Ouray and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, two places which in some ways are more impressive than the Grand Canyon. Maybe if you want someone to be blown away by the Grand Canyon, you shouldn’t show them Ouray first – Ouray is just freakishly beautiful.

OK, so, no, she didn’t freak out, say “oh my god”, or start crying. I think I over-hyped it a bit and expected it to be as powerful to her as it was to me the first time. But she does agree that the view from that North Rim lodge balcony is one of the best places on Earth to have a margarita! (Also in the running might be the view from the Princeville hotel bar and restaurant in Kauai where we had our honeymoon).

The only really bad part of this trip was ruining those 3-4 rolls of film by double-exposing it at the Grand Canyon and at Emigrant Wilderness. I really think there were several professional quality shots on there. I really have not had much opportunity to travel to places that beautiful to do some photography since then, and it may be a while before I get a chance to photograph places that awesome again. I’d really like a do-over on those rolls.

A few other lessons learned from this trip. If I do go back and do the rim-to-rim hike with my family, I probably would not go along with the philosophy of getting up at 4-5am so that your main hiking is complete by, say 10am. I understand the point of beating the heat, but getting up that early--especially when sleeping in a tent on the ground--is brutal. Getting enough sleep and having a relaxing breakfast to fuel up for the tough hiking might be worth trading off for hiking in a little hotter weather (finishing by, say, noon or 1pm instead of by 1030 or 11am). I know Natasha and my daughter Lauren are NOT morning persons, so I think they’d probably agree with me there. Probably the best bet is to plan the hike in the Spring or Fall when temperatures are cooler.

A headlamp would have really come in handy to be able to find things in the dark yet have both hands free. And I should definitely try to pack lighter. I love the pictures I took, but that tripod was HEAVY. Maybe I can afford some ultra light carbon fiber tripod for the next trip!

Since writing this memoir, Steve and Kim have adopted two kids, Taylor ( a girl) and Ryan (boy). Also, Robert and Linda had their first child a couple of years ago, Katherine Giles Canaan (it could be debated that Katie was their 2nd child – with their first child being their golden retriever, Trooper!) Now that we all have kids, I really look forward to maybe going on a great hiking trip sometime with both of their families, along with mine.

The adventure continues…