Iced Tea Forever

There was some controversy on this subject in some comments recently, so I’m going to resolve it once and for all.

Click on the image for the full-size version.

Yes Rob, this is an official invitation for all loyal ITF constituents!

[update]Here is a map.[/update]

There are a few conditions. You must email me by the end of next week or so if you plan to attend, and let me know how many are coming. Unfortunately, I must reserve the right to retract the invitation if too many ITF’ers wish to attend and capacity becomes limited. Sorry about that, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

Jewel loves pictures, and there was one included with each invitation. Click here to see all four of them.

I’ve been using the great little dBpowerAMP Music Converter to rip CD’s to my computer. It connects to freedb.org and gets the album information automatically. Artist, title, track list, year, and genre are all right there, very nice.

But since my music tastes are decidedly other than mainstream, I’ve been running into some CD’s that aren’t in the database yet. So I have to input the information and submit them to freedb.org.

Yesterday I had the brilliant idea, hey, I wonder if AHQ is in the database?! So I threw Purpose into my computer and sure enough, all the data came right up. But there was a problem.

There are 13 tracks on the CD only 12 are mentioned on the back of the CD. Whoever input the data accidentally listed tracks 4 and 5 as “Soul’s Been Anchored” and “in the Lord” (there is a line break on the back of the CD). And since only 12 of the 13 tracks are mentioned there, they evidently didn’t catch the error.

So I submitted a revision (though it hasn’t shown up in the database yet). It’s no big deal, I’m just telling the story. In the few CD’s I’ve done with dBpowerAMP, I’ve found some other errors too.

Lookin’ Up is also in the database. So thanks to whoever submitted them.

And thanks to our OTA Hans for the wise technical counsel.

I’ve come to appreciate this one quite a bit over the last couple of years. I think it comes off the “I Do Believe” video, although the schtick Mark uses it in goes way back in GVB’s Michael English days.

But Mark is making fun of Bill Gaither of course, and he says:

“(You can) get him out of Indiana but you can’t get Indiana out of him!”

Ha ha ha!!

Wedding invitations are ferociously expensive. I should know! I dropped well over 2 c-notes on stamps alone.

Being the generous and benevolent guy that I am, I generously and benevolently put a stamp on each invitation reply card envelope. I hoped this would melt the hearts of the recipients, and they would be more likely to go to the incredible work of returning the reply card.

Ha! Sometimes I can be really naive.

Today I sat down and figured out how much money I had invested in stamps for reply cards that have not yet been returned. So far the total is just over $61.

Get those cards in the mail people!!! I can’t afford to spend $61 on your laziness!

What, me? Have I ever not returned a wedding invitation reply card? Uh, well, um, wait a minute now, er, but I’ve changed!! I’m a different man than I was then!

Tell me, is it really necessary to do the following:

You have visitors in your Sunday School class. So you go around the circle and everybody states their name. Come on! And of course it goes lightning quick with everybody starting immediately after the last guy. So it comes out something like this:

I’m Joe WeaverJacob StoltzfusFred MillerHenry YoderSteve HochstetlerFrank MulletEbenezer MillfaustDavid Schrock.

Now that is helpful!

At least promise me this, you’ll put a little pause in before you state your name. Then maybe the visitor’s head won’t be spinning quite so fast after the gibberish has whipped around the circle.

I’ve been going through some miscellaneous CD-ROMs that I have sitting around, looking for some ancient data that I used to have. I came across some old CD’s from when AHQ recorded Lookin’ Up, different takes and mixes and whatnot from the studio. Our engineer would give us CD’s of stuff we had done so we could further analyze it at home and make some decisions there.

This one CD I just found had some outtake stuff on it (posted here) and a bunch of regular takes on it. Some of which ended up on the album, some of which did not. That of which I wish to speak now.

I found a take of “When Morning Sweeps” that I had completely forgot about, evidently we had an alternate ending for it! Interesting. I think we made the right decision in which to put on the album, but this is still interesting.

Here it is. If you forgot or don’t know what the actual ending ended up to be, buy Lookin’ Up.

I am immensely, button-burstingly proud of this moment in my life. I was a profound influence on a person and situation which resulted in the creation of an exquisite piece of art.

I said “By, lift up your arm.” It was partially obscuring a big white string on his suit coat, so he moved his arm and then saw it.

Inspiration struck his fertile mind, and the rest is history.

And I found it in Indiana! But I guess Hoosierbillies and Rednecks are pretty closely related, so I shouldn’t be too surprised.

Sorry about the quality of the pic, it was a drive-by shooting.

Did you know that Radio Bible Class Ministries has the Our Daily Bread devotions online? Sure enough, very convenient. Links to the Scripture readings and everything.

They have two other devotionals online also, Soul Journey and My Utmost for His Highest.

Rob, I expect you to apologize for not telling me about all this sooner.