Gospel Fest

A few members or our praise team and myself ventured to Bonita United Methodist Church today and participated in their annual Gospel Fest. My friend Don Clark and others have organized this for a few years now and I've gone every year. This is the first time I've brought church family with me.

It's a great time with all kinds of gospel music performed from CCM (that would be us) to black gospel and even secular tunes with a spiritual message.

Wonderful people from the church also make or bring great food (especially the desserts) and an offering is taken up to help Love Inc.

I tried to take those that were there on a little bit of a spiritual journey with God from our first understanding of a great and wonderful God that we don't understand..to the coming of our messiah to the fact that we are saved and it is time for us to respond.. The set list was..

God of Wonders (Byrd/Hindalong)
Forever (Tomlin)
Rain Down (Crowder)
Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel (a la Sufjan Stevens)
A Beautiful Collision (Crowder)
Jesus Messiah (Tomlin)
How Great Thou Art ( a la Baloche)
All Creatures (a la Crowder on Illuminate)
Surely We Can Change (Crowder).

It was a great time.. some of the gospel groups we heard and worshiped were phenomenal. We received great feedback regarding our presentation as well. It's always a great time to hang out with loving Godly people and worship with them.

Sweet!!!

Read about it here

The David Crowder Band website..

Always has interesting stuff... beyond the norm of other bands.. there used to be Crowder head where there was the bald head .. and next to it were a beard, hair, glasses and ears.. and you could put them on the bald head and make your own Crowder head. My daughter and I used to put his parts in all the wrong places just for fun.. and then re-set and do it again... we imagined that David got a snapshot of each funny looking head made sent to him each time the thing was re-set..and we laughed..and made more goofy looking Crowder heads..

There were also different stories and things you could read about songs as you passed your cursor over the lights that looked like they were a part of some circus sign..

Anyway.. there was an email sent out by the band the other day stating lots of things but one of which was the secret code had not been broken.. they made mention that you could reply to the email with a question and if Mike D got around to it he might respond.. so I replied.."so what's the secret code"..

He emailed me back and told me and I got this..

http://dcb01.com/aster/isk/76001.html

Check it out...

Also.. if you go to his website..and go to the DC*B website..??...listed on the left, you can put your cursor over the remedy emblem on the bottom left and then click on it for an interesting read...

There is a red vine on the upper left that all I can make it do is grow..

If you find something else out let me know...

Oh.. and to get what I got..you click on the * in the upper right.. a remedy bee is released and you must move it with your arrow keys to catch the bugs .. make sure you get all of them!

Hate... I... just in case David is surfing his daily surf.. ;-) >

davidcrowderband.com

Survivor's guilt....

Ike certainly played havoc with many people's lives.. even before he got here many were dealing with a lot of stress and relocating and finding places to eat, sleep, clean up, etc...

Well we're suffering from something that Donna has coined as "Survivor's guilt"

We have been blessed.. and I don't mean blessed because we only lost power or the tree fell away from the house like so many others have declared.

We have fared better than most through this crazy ordeal.

I've already told you about our Brookshire Brothers experience.. amazing.

Well then Ike finally makes his way on to land. Donna hates that the storm is going to hit us while we're asleep. But when we go to bed it's a little breezy with a slight overcast. No big deal.

The storm hits in the early morning and we start watching the weather channel. I get on my computer and start watching the progress of the storm and the path it is taking. I'm watching on line broadcasts from Houston and Beaumont..

I feel so bad for all those folks in Houston and the golden triangle, I hope my brothers are ok (and they are) as well as cousins etc. (they are).

The wind kicks up.. harder gusts and as time goes on the lights flicker... and stay on. Later I hear some big noise on the roof.. I go outside to see what's going on. There is a small limb on the roof. There are a couple of larger limbs down but the trees are all standing secure.. the next gust blows through and scares the heck out of me.. I go inside.

A few hours later we start checking on people and listening to the radio. Seems everyone we talk to has lost power.. Friends tell us that if we have power we're the only people in Lufkin with power.. I know she's wrong because I can see the TV on in the house across the street. Outside that I really don't know.

I'm also checking twitter throughout the day and find that people well north of me have lost power like Jinx but he has twitter up on his BB so I keep him posted on what's up and the storm center and direction and speed and cool stuff like that...

We ride the entire storm out and never lose lights, satellite (which we usually lose when a front comes through), or internet. Amazing. We invite friends over that are in the dark and play some games and watch the USC/Ohio State game.

We have a very well attended casual communion service at church the next morning. It is a beautiful service. Cory, we need to pray like that more often..

Anyway.. I then do fortune 500 transportation company stuff the rest of the day.

No power at work but really it just makes life a little simpler there for a while. I have to say I'm kind of enjoying it..

Donna puts the word out to friends that we have freezer space for those that don't want to lose their food..they can store it with us.

One of Donna's friends offers us some meat that she says she won't eat. Just eat it, don't worry about freezing it for her.

I find out it's meat from the Grand Champion Steer from the Houston Livestock show and Rodeo.






I do not know if this is the actual steer but it could be...

Ok, those steers don't go cheap so I go check this out here. If the steer weights out at around 2000 lbs and dresses around 1400 lbs..going for $300,000 means I was eating meat worth about $214/lb... so that filet I had was worth somewhere around $160..and we got it free.

Wow..

I'm buying a lottery ticket tomorrow.

If I win..I'll feel even more guilty but I will then be a full time minister too...

Lufkin Panther Football is missed

Since we were not able to watch the Lufkin Panthers play this week due to Hurricane Ike.. I thought I would share some video from the nail biting ending of the Lufkin Panther game against John Tyler last week. We barely won 13-12.. everyone was galvanized to the game. Fan excitement was high!!!

What a blessing.. a Brookshire Brothers encounter.

Hey all..Thursday Donna was doing some running around and getting some final purchases done in prep for Ike. One of her stops was Brookshire Brothers at Gaslight in Lufkin, TX.

No doubt the place was busy.. she made her selections and went through the check-out. The checker told her the amount was $350 or so. The amount seemed a little high but considering some of the things she was purchasing and the other things on her mind she went with it.

Once the checker was finished Donna went to put it on her card.. The checker said "Ok you're debt card has been charged, thank you for shopping at Brookshires".

Donna said.. I haven't run my card yet and it's not my debit card. It's my credit card.

The checker tried to figure out what was going on and couldn't. The checker called a manager in and went to check out the register tape and the system and see what happened. He came back to Donna and said "there's not enough stuff in your cart to cost you this much, let me look at this".

Apparently what had happened the previous charge had not been closed out. He was going to just look at the ticket and see where our product started and where the other customer's products ended. The checker told him.."the register tape doesn't print like that any more...they are grouped by product, they are not in the order of being checked".

The manager told Donna.. "Well today is your lucky day. You get your groceries free.". Donna tried to get them to re-ring them but they wouldn't do it. Since she was honest and didn't take advantage of their error and hurt the other customer they were more than glad to give her the groceries..

I'm telling you it was more than $200 in groceries...Free.

I like Brookshire Brothers. Kudos to you BB.

Stuff Christians Like and stuff..

OK a while back I posted this.

Then Monday Sept 8th Stuff Christians Like posted this.

If this every hits the market.. I better get my royalty checks..

His is more detailed.. he just has more time on his hands.

My Friday.. a little late

My Friday was a good day.. nothing really exciting happened but here is a brief run through..





Came to work and I think since we had just had some people visiting our terminal from corporate everyone was a little wired. Everyone was laughing and cutting up and doing our normal "hatin" on each other. We also have one particular member of our staff who loves to get others off of their train of thought and is always hijacking conversations....he was in rare form this Friday.





Later had a very good staff meeting although we didn't bring in Chick-fil-a this time. One of my people had made some awesome chicken spaghetti the night before and she brought the left overs and it was awesome!!! very spicy too!!





Spent the afternoon doing some random tasks and planning music for youth on Sunday night...





I realize I have not been keeping up my set lists.. sorry about that.. I will do better this week.. I think.





Wrapped up the day and met my bride at the house and we headed to .... yes... finally....

Went through the drive through.. drove to the stadium and did some tailgating and went to the LP-John Tyler game. Oh and who are you going to pull for Todd? Lee? JT? or LP? I just thought I'd ask again in case someone missed your post.










Friend of mine (Scott Skelton) took this pic at the game while he was shooting game shots and pics of the band and pride.





LP was underwhelming, but we got the W.





Off to the house and off to bed. Had a busy Saturday ahead...

text messages between a mother and son on the first day at Angelina College

Austin-I'm off

Donna-Good Luck

Austin-I forgot paper

Donna-Get some at bookstore

Austin-I'll b late

Donna-Don't know what to tell u

Austin-and there is no place 2 park

Donna-ask someone, u should have gone ealry

Austin-I had 2 park on the street all the way past the bridge and I 4got 2 get something 2 write with

Donna-I can't help u. Deal with it. U have had time 2 get ur stuff together

Austin-and I'm late

McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwich vs The Chick-fil-a Sandwich

Howdy all...Today I finally taste tested the McDonald's chicken sandwich...but first some history..

I can still remember when the only Chick-fil-a I knew about was in that mall in Houston we went to a couple of times a year. It was always a really cool treat to take part in the delicious chicken they served at that little mall storefront. It was one of the few fast food meals my dad took part in and looked forward to. I guess that's really the reason this food place has such a special place deep down in my soul.

Chick-fil-a is really good. I love the chicken sandwich.. I love their grilled chicken salad... I love their nuggets. I love to buy a nugget tray and bring it in for my weekly staff meeting at the un-named fortune 500 transportation company I work for. I HATE their shakes..because they are so good..

Am I in love with Chick-fil-a? Not really... There are other real restaurants that I really "love" but the thing I like about Chick-fil-a is that it is fast food and it's aways very good. The people are always super friendly, well dressed, neat and tidy. The facility is always pristine. So many positives for a fast food place so it's a good solid choice. The restaurant is also a ritual for me and Donna after band practice (if we don't make it to mid week peak).

Sooo....finally to the alternative.


The McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwich. First of all..it was about a third smaller than the Chick-fil-a sandwich so when I took it out I was a little taken by the size. I didn't compare prices so I don't know what the "value" is but I just know what I'm used to and that wasn't it. Presentation=strike one

The pickle.. the chick-fil-a sandwich has one.. I used to take it off when I was a kid but now it is part of the sandwich experience. It's usually soft and pretty tart. You know it's there from the flavor.

The McD sandwich has a whole bun covered with pickles.. 3 of them..and they are not as sour as the cfa sandwich pickle.. also..they are almost like gummie pickles.. almost crisp but not quite..a little hard, a little soft, a little rubbery, but a weak pickle. Sorry... Pickle= strike two

The chicken itself had a good texture and consistency and the crust was nice but there was little to no flavor..I never realize that cfa chicken was seasoned but it obviously has some seasoning on it because it was missing from the McD sandwich.. chicken=strike three.

the catcher missed the ball on a swinging third strike so the runner runs to first but....

The bread.. I'll tell you that I was never really overwhelmed by the cfa sandwich bun..it was a tool that held the chicken..it was an effective tool in that it didn't detract from the experience. The bread was fine... the McD sandwich??? As I bit in to the bun it was like the bread crust layer peeled off the bread and wrapped itself around my teeth like some adhesive bread coat...and I mean it stuck to my teeth. I had to work it off with my tongue. That was really weird. Bun??=thrown out at first...the sandwich is out.

I guess I'd eat another if I had a chicken sandwich jones on a road trip and the only place to eat at was McD's but usually if I'm stuck with McD's I'm gonna go for their crown jewel the big mac...

I really like Chick-fil-a.

God is good!