the music of our lives...

HEY FIVER... HERE IS A NEW BLOG POST FOR YOU TO READ!!!
back to my otherwise beautiful thoughts... i have been on a HUGE roller coaster ride the last few weeks. i cant even begin to describe all of the emotions but here i am today, asleep in my bed and unstoned (blind melon). i have been listening to a wide variety of music lately in order to sit back, relax, and float down streams (beatles). i have discovered a few new artists that have been just what i needed (the cars). the first one is sort of a rekindled love, it the breeders, a firey alt chic band from the 90's with a flare of grundge and psychodellia and a hint of pure punk. started by kim deal of the pixies and tanya donelly of throwing muses, the breeders have helped me just get along (breeders) with my problems at work. i have found that they seemed to have influenced a number of other post grundge/pop punk bands that are thriving today, such as the strokes (they have a very similar sound).
the next 2 just wanna have fun (cydi lauper), they are me first and the gimme gimme's and jonathan coulton. me first and the gimme gimme's is a punk cover band that takes old brown (george harrison) songs and punkifies them. for example they took the lyrics and chord structure of fife and rain, added heavy distortion and speed the whole thing up and made an awesome cover version. in fact i dont think they have any originals at all yet everything they play is played in a pretty original way. their catalogue includes; i am a rock (paul simon), science fiction (rocky horror show), country roads (john denver who is from the rocky mountains and is high(roy green jr.)), stairway to heaven (led zepplin), crazy (patsey cline) and stand by your man (tammy wynette). fun, fun, fun (the beach boys).

the third and final artist i want to talk about is a guy named jonathan coulton. the only thing most people would have heard of his is the theme song to code monkeys, an 8-bit animation about a video game development company in the '80's of the same name. the theme song is only the chorus to the song. jonathan, whose fans lovingly call him joco, writes mainly about nerd topics like programming, evil villains falling in love, and ikea. he even has a song about how tom cruise crazy tom cruise is as well as a great cover of baby got back... hill-arious!!!

anyway, i have decided that i need to try my hand a writing so i am going to try, but before i do i need to study up. i talked to joel and he told me how he learned about lyric structure. i think i am going to start there and see how far i get. well, i guess thats it... i hope fiver is satisfied with what i have written.

sleep

i dont understand why, on the days i dont have anywhere to be until late, do i wake up at 5am but the days that i have somewhere to be at 7am i can barely roll out of bed at 630...whats the deal???

anyway, here it is, my first (even though long time coming) impressions on the iphone 4... the device i have been more excited about since gizmodo acquired theirs, the phone that people said would "revolutionize the mobile phone industry.. again," the phone that crashed both apples and at&ts servers. i would like to say that i do like my new phone but... there are things that i can not stand!!!

first things first, the following is a checklist of the main features of this phone:
retina display - love
5mp camera - love
720p vid cam - love
apples a4 processor - wow... love!!!
gyro + accelerametor - love
led flash - meh
multitasking - HATE WITH A PURPLE PASSION ON A HOT FREAKING DAY!!!
external antenna - meh... lets start there

i must say that i have had problems with phone reception like this before, in fact this is not the worse reception problem i have had. my next to last sprint phone i had to hold the phone at the top while raising the bottom of the phone almost straight up to talk at times, even when the phone was registering full bars. i hate talking on the phone anyway.

led flash, as you may know i am a shutter bug, i am rarely with out my camera so i dont use my iphones cam very much for stills. in other words i dont use the led flash very much so that feature is kind of wasted on me. but the video cam, man i love that. i dont use it as often as i would like (i kind of forget about it) but when i do, well... ITS SO AWESOME!!! in fact i bought a dock thing that i velcroed to my dash so i can start a car vlog... hope i update more often than i update this blog (;

speaking of flash, lets talk about apples conflicts with adobe and their "powerful" web enhancement, flash. i pretty much hate flash. it is pretty annoying most of the time. i have never missed flash abilities on my phone and if a website does not have a non flash version, it is pretty obvious to me that i dont need to visit it anyway.

ok so lets talk about that sore thumb thats sticking out of my list, multi tasking. when we used windows mobile phones you had to close every program twice, once to initially close the interface and again in task manager because if you didnt it would clog processing there by slowing the phone and eventually causing your phone to lock up. im not saying that the iphones processor will not handle all the processes (apple put a cap on the number of processes that can be open at one time) but if you only use an app once in a while, like i use the clock app on average once every few weeks, i hate that i have close the app then reclose it... THATS COMPLETELY REDUNDANT!!! i wish they would include a switch in settings to turn it off, that would be awesome but will probably never happen.

so over all i love my iphone 4, although i dont love it that much more than my 3g. it is better and much MUCH nicer looking, i cant say that i feel like i am on it as much as when i first got my 3g. i am on it a lot but i am not as enammered with it like i was with my 3g. im glad i did it though. anyway, i hope this was enjoyable as well as informative.

boredom

so i am sitting here at the tavern, kind of bored... im not much of a socialite. kirk is playing and last has just been called. i was just able to be proud of my marriage in public (not that i am never proud of my marriage in public but this time i guess i got to brag). one of our friends just announced she was super excited about our up coming anniversary party this weekend. the guy she was talking with across the table from me just asked how long we have been married. i said "ten years, in fact we are the only people in our core group of friends at the time we got married to stay married at all." i guess i kind of blabbed that before thinking, since i dont really know this cat, but it made me proud... sorry to those reading this who are no longer married or have never been married... we love you (;

anyway, the person who proclaimed her excitement about our party will be leaving us soon. her and her husband are moving to alaska. he is from there and misses it a lot. monday they go to austin so she can try out for american idol with another friend of ours. if she doesnt make it to hollywood they are splitting that friday (i think) for washington state to stay with his dad for a few weeks. then they make to trek to alaska. they decided last week to go so they put in their 2 weeks notice at their jobs and started packing. what faith, i mean, they dont have jobs or prospects for jobs or any ideas about how they will make a living there but they are jumping out on faith. i admire them for that. and i will miss them, we just started getting close. oh well, such as life. we will keep up with them through facebook and i guess they have phones there, seems unlikely though, HAHA.

so as a final thought i plan on adding another post next week, possibly on tuesday night whilst at the tavern, and the main subject will be a review of my precious... PRECIOUS!!! see you then!

camp, vlog, south park

ok so i got back from week one of camp last night and i am pretty tired. i will go back tuesday after i get off work. we only had one big bit of drama, too crazy to put up here but i can guarantee that it was a wild night with a total of 3 kids in the er (:

anyway before i left i got a dock for my phone so i can use it for a car vlog that i hope to turn into my motorcycle vlog. i was able to shoot, edit and upload the standard def video to youtube... i deleted it so good luck in finding it muhahahaha. anyway i might put one up while i am at camp this week.

i guess i dont have much to say, especially about south park, other than misscell and i are on season 8.

see you soon... maybe!!!

...and then life happened...

so i totally had the intent to write something up earlier this week but became very busy. we had friends coming in this weekend and our house was a wreck. this week was a rather clean week... i guess. i also had the intent to do an unboxing and write up on my first impressions on my new iphone 4. i still am going to write some about my impressions of my new phone but i feel that the unboxing is rather late and not necessary.

i feel that i need to write about my life at the moment. i have been in major conflict about my life path. after my wifes newest career possibilities in television i feel that i may need to go ahead and get a degree in it. in fact there is a position that has opened up at a university here in abilene that is a media lab supervisor. i am planning on applying for it but fear that i am rather under qualified for it. but in that same line of thought there is a university that i have found that may suite my needs for a degree. they have degrees in multimedia, broadcast, as well as music recording. all three are degrees that i am very interested in, i think i may try for a double major... after all i have 3 degrees to choose from. my plan is to do 2 things, one is to start a recording studio ( i know, i know, this is old info... for some i guess). the other is to whore myself out to different ministries and organizations that would need a promo or training vid. i will also be able to use it with my wifes tv stuff since she will be filming it herself... the usually means that i will be filming, editing, mastering all of the vids.

anyway, i have not quite gotten in the habit of writing my thoughts down for future blogging... in fact i have not done it at all but i will. well, i guess thats it for now (:

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIVE

so i check and check and check and check and yet fedex.com says my new iphone is in memphis until suddenly... "DING DONG" the fedex guy... ITS HERE AND I OPENED IT AND AM ABOUT TO PLAY WITH IT!!! expect an unboxing and write up on it in a few days/weeks. anyway, i am off to play... THANKS STEVE!!! (i mean mr. Jobs)

iphone and dads day

Good news everybody. we both got shipping confirmations on our new iphones!!! this is good because we thought we would get another sort of email, one that says "order cancelled" BUT WE DIDNT!!! they will be here on thursday as ordered, also included in the email are tracking numbers for fedex. we cant wait to get them.

next is fathers day, i know that there are a lot of people who celebrate fathers day, i dont. my father is alive and i have a great father in law (even though he is a complete nut job) but i dont get along with my father. i have always had a dislike for fathers day because my father is not really worthy of celebration... yes he had a part in giving me life but as far as raising me and feeding me and all that mess he was pretty much not involved. so i am here at my moms house celebrating the fact i dont have a father... whoopee

is this annoying yet

ok so i am sure that this may get annoying, and i know that it may seem that i am just blogging around big events in tech but... i think this may be the event that springboards me into a consistent blogger.

in order to, hopefully, prove my commitment to this whole blog thing i am willing to share my plan with you. i plan on carrying around a small notebook where i will write down random thoughts that i have during the day. i will take these thoughts every few days or weeks or so and compose them into a well organized blog. this will, hopefully, incorporate well with my next public voice which is a motorcycle vlog. i dont have a motorcycle yet but i am going to work on that as soon as my wife gets a new job and we become more financially stable (i realize that we just blew a ton of scratch on the new iphones but what you gonna do, huh).

next topic; flaming lips new disc. i am a huge pink floyd fan, in particular dark side of the moon. this album has been on my top 10 of all times from the first listen, which i admit was rather late in my music life. i can not hear one song from this album with out feeling the overwhelming need to grab my ipod and listen to the entire album. so a few months ago the flaming lips were on jimmy falon playing breathe. i was amazed. i am not a flaming lips fan, i want to be but i cant get into them at all. i was really impressed to say the least of their performance. while i was in jersey last week i decided to grab the cd... i would usually just download it from itunes but i can not resist buying something from a groovy record shop like the one i found myself in that day. anyway, i am in LOVE with their version. they really do the floyd justice. they carry the initial sound of breathe throughout the entire album, just the way floyd would have done. each song is carefully re-imagined to fit the style of the lips yet still embraces the vibe of the original album. i felt like i was floating on a cloud of musical goodness.
anyway, you should pick up a copy if you are either a pink floyd fan or a flaming lips fan.

iphone update...

so i stayed up most of the night, i went to bed at 4 and had to wake up at 630 for work. i tried and tried and tried to order a new iphone with little luck... stupid att get your shit together!!! anyway, finally around 5 this evening i got one through, i bought my wifes phone and gave up on ordering my own. thats right, mr. tech made the ultimate sacrifice and did not order himself a new piece of tech so his wife could have one. i thought, oh well, i could play with hers and order a white one and trade with her when it comes in. so i told her i would try later but i was sort of giving up. about 10 minutes later she said "YOU GOT IT!!!" i was like "what?!" and she was like "that right..." she tried twice and ordered mine, silly minks. she felt bad that she was getting one and i was not. i am honoured to be married to such a wonderful woman, i didnt need a situation to realize this but i feel she deserves a special shout out. this is, once again, proof that i married an awesome person. i love you, and i will never leave you nor forsake you sweetheart. i am lucky to be married to you.

anyway... i need to go buy her some dinner and a beer.

here we come iphone here we come...

so here it is 130a and i am wiped out... yet i am no closer to a new phone. apple store is down for update and att sucks. mel has started me on party down, i hope that holds me till 2 when i think the store will reopen. this is exciting!!!

new phone

so i know that this is a bad decision as far as sleep is concerned but i think this is fun. my wife and i are waiting up for the iphone 4. we love our 3gs and were really excited when steve (yes he and i are on a first name basis, hey steve) announced it a few weeks ago. i am hitting the refresh key over and over while they update the store... this is so exciting!!!


more later

nothing new

unfortunately i dont have anything to talk about at the moment. my wife and i have been rearranging our house the last week. our goal is to be completely done in 3 weeks. the past few days have not been that productive though. maybe this week we will get a lot done.

transportation

so i was just picked up by my friend from the airport. i flew from abilene airport to dfw then on to phili. in dfw i was given the option to give up my ticket so that no one will be upset because they overbooked my flight. i called my buddy and he said that he could pick me up later and that i should go for it (they gave me a huge travel voucher for doing it). so they needed 3 seats and they got 2, me and this older lady, but i didnt know that until later. the first time i saw this lady, Pat, she was standing next to me amongst the anxious passengers awaiting a seat on the plane. there were a TON of military there traveling. no, they werent patrolling or there to secure anything, they were just flying. so this uniformed serviceman walked by her and she stopped him. she gave him some money, he politely refused but she insisted. i couldnt hear all that she said but i could make out that her husband was in the service and that she really wanted him to have it. so he took it and thanked her kindly. sweet kid, sweet lady. so the guy at the counter called us both over so that we could sign our ticket away, get our vouchers and get our new ticket to phili. so the guy instructed us to go to terminal meaw in section meaw and wait for our flight to be called at like 2:00. she looked at him like he was speaking vulcan or something. so i said "i just came from there" which was somewhat true, i had been close. "i will take you there since i have to go there too. so we walk to the escalator and then on to the tram and so on and so forth. we talk the entire way there. when we arrive at the terminal we split up and i get some food and after i ate i ran into her again. we wound up sitting and chatting until they called our flight at 2:45. she told me about her husband and how he was a pow of ww2, she even gave me a pin that commemorated his squads capture. we talked about the war and how she still goes to the reunions and her kids and their kids and so on. her husband, who was a gunner on a plane, was shot down by a group of 14 year old german kids that were pulled out of school to join the german army. she also told me that one of the germans that were shooting at his squad contacted her son, who helps with reunions of the event and all. basically both groups became friends and forgave each other. the visit each others annual reunions and write to each other and have become good friends.

i LOVE this because even in times of war, even in times of hate and aggressiveness and violence we are all still human. we all still have feelings, no matter what training we endure that is meant to make us cold and unloving. no matter what we are told to do and how that hurts others we are still human. we need to forgive and be forgiven. we need to be aware that we need these things. if we are aware of this i think that we will be a little happier.

new possibilities

so my boss called me this afternoon. he offered me to support a new series of products. one that is new to me not the company. it would entail selling to other doctors. this may seem like a good thing but in reality it is not. you see i hate what i do, i really dont like the company that i work for, and i most certainly do not like the medical industry. i am between a rock and a hard place because if i say yes to my boss then i will be more locked into a job that i hate and my stress level from it will be unmanageable, it is almost to that point now. the reason for that is that i get absolutely no support from my company. if i have a problem all i get is a stream of excuses. that never pleases the doctor. this company already has a horrible reputation here and if i try and promote a new line of products it will fail and i will lose my job. the docs that this product is targeting already have a very strong relationship with the reps and companies that they are using now. they will not go with a company that they hear is crap and that is competing with the companies that they already use.

you see, this is a very cut-throat industry, and i am by no means a cut-throat kind of guy. if i say i dont want to do it there is a strong chance that i have written my own death notice with the company. this is really not good because my wife just lost her job. it is also not good because i have no marketable skills. it will be super hard for me to find another job. i have been toying with going back to school but for what? there are so many factors that i am becoming very confused. i also owe a ton of money, taxes, school loans for both me and my wife. i really dont know what to do.

in my thinking and panic this afternoon i decided to email both of my spiritual rocks, well two of them at least, and let them in on the situation. one said this... "you hate your job, forget the money, God will provide that, go find something you love." first off i need to say that the guy who said this is the guy i play bass for and that i have been wanting to raise our game with to bring our band to the next level. i have been praying that God bring success to our band so that we can use our band as an example to what He wants a band to be. i also would like us to become a voice for Him in places and with people that would not normally hear His word. having said that this got me to thinking, maybe i need to make a leap of faith toward this direction. maybe in my faithfulness He will bring us to this place of success. or maybe my leap of faith will bring a certain clear direction for my life. i am for sure a jack of all trades and a master of none. i enjoy so much but dont know which one is right for my life. i feel super pulled to my band and feel that i have been placed where i am for a reason.

the other friend also replied, to bring you up on his comment my boss said that if i werent insistant that i make my trip to see this friend this weekend then he would fly my to california for training this weekend on this new stuff. my friend said "maybe this is really divinely inspired because you didn't have to fly to Cali. This will be a fun crossroads of life. Hmm." maybe he is right.

on top of this advice and comments is a real kicker... the honest answer is that i do not want to do it. that makes my answer of yes very dishonest. if i had my druthers i would quit this stupid job so that i could quit wasting my time and the time of the guy that needs and the one God wants to have this job. i think i will be honest and say i dont want to do it. i need to pray about it and about what i am going to say. this is not easy, but i guess its not supposed to be.

consistency

so i decided that i need to be consistent if i am to keep this blog going. so here it is, a new post... about... um... consistency, i guess. consistency is kind of a crazy thing with me. i like things to be consistent but if they are not, i like that too... i guess i dont really care anything about it... i guess. what i do like is fine entertainment. music, movies, tv shows, one of which i am watching right now. i am almost finished with my name is earl, what an amazing show... sort of. the first season, AWESOME. second season, going down hill. third season, not good at all, but the fourth and final totally redeemed itself. i only have a few episodes left and i think im going to miss watching it. i will definitely be re-watching this show. my wife and i started doctor who before she went to new york with the school she worked for. that show is also awesome. if you havent checked that one out you should. we started with the newer one just before david tennant. we hope to find copies of the old one in between the new seasons. anyway, i have a lot of stuff to do so i guess i am going to get to it.

first things first

ok, first things first. i have a problem. when i first started my online presence in 1998 i had to come up with a name. nay an online persona that would take me through a lifetime of internets account and mystery. i felt the need to make a name up, one that was as unique as a snow flake. i mulled it over for weeks trying to find the right combination of sounds that would be so unique and mysterious and weird that when people heard it they would say "huh?" then one day when i was checking my school email account it came to me... A MESSAGE FROM GOD!!! my online persona is to be named... zephoria!!! 'z' is probably my favorite letter and i love the 'f' sound the 'ph' makes. i was also into trying to understand and achieve euphoria, the effort was not worth it. so, in april 1998 i became ZEPHORIA. i searched zephoria on several search engines and all returned nill. i would be the only zephoria out there. before now i had only come across one other zephoria, she was a girl in india who had no interest in returning my email. anyway, about 4 years ago i decided i would try out this whole myspace thing (something i actually hate now), when trying to use my typical user name, zephoria, the wonderful people of myspace told me that my name was already taken... WHAT?! thats right, a garage band made of stupid teen in england stole my name and created a myspace. ever since then i can not get the user name zephoria. no email or blog account, nothing. there is even an internet marketing company named zephoria. when i discovered that my name was being plagiarized by snotty punk kids from the island i decided to add grey to the end of my name, sort of like a last name. one of my things is that i dont like dashes or underscores. i know, i know, thats stupid but i dont like the way they look. i prefer periods. when trying to start this blog (this is my third attempt to be a blogger) i could not find a free blog hosting site that allowed periods in urls or usernames. i hope blogger was a good choice, i like most of googles other stuff so maybe it will work out. i hope i did not push anyone who reads this into a state of boredom and that you will come back and read something more interesting, then again, i hope that i take the time to write something more interesting in future posts.