A Liberated Mind

As I sit patiently waiting to receive the new Derek Webb record “Stockholm Syndrome” via digital download, let me just fill you all in on a couple of things I have been thinking about lately.  And granted, I don’t ever want to get too serious or deep on this blog, but sometimes I just have to scratch an itch.  So here I go.

One of the lyrics that DW mentions in the big ‘controversial song’ called “What Matters More” on his new album (which can be purchased here) is based on a Tony Campolo quote that goes like this: “First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”

Now obviously since DW has used a very similar lyric (and yes, he included the cursing), it is going to catch a few people off guard.  But my hope is that the lyric makes people think about the statement – it has certainly made me ponder if I really care about what happens in the rest of the world while I am so comfortable living in it.

At the same time, I am currently reading a book by a guy named Mark Scandrette who is an emergent church leader in California and is all about “walking in the way of Jesus”.

(And just to clarify, I do not consider myself progressive or cool enough to be an emergent – I simply dig SOME of their prospectives.  However, this is neither the time nor the place for that discussion.)

Anyway, one of the things Scandrette and many other leaders in this movement talk about is bringing heaven to earth versus bringing the folks of earth to heaven (my massive paraphrase).  Which, due to my being raised in conservative churches, is pretty much a foreign concept to me. 

And because I have been told all my life to only tell people about the gospel, I am kind of new to this whole concept of showing people the gospel through my actions and personal sacrifice.

However, I like the idea of both.

I think we need to share the gospel verbally (which the emergent folks probably don’t dig), but I also think we need to be missional and love our neighbors and enemies and point them to the gospel through our actions without having to verbalize the gospel to them (which is probably kind of weird sounding to most traditional church folks).

Basically, there needs to be a balance.

Which brings me back to Derek Webb and Mark Scandrette and how they are both making me reevaluate my own faith and how it is played out in the course of my daily life. 

In reality, neither of those guys get it perfectly right – no one has ever gotten it right except for Jesus.  Yet there are cool things I can learn from both lyrics to a song and words from a book.

Some of these things are like how I realize I never want to be pigeon-holed or labeled.  Or how I don’t ever want to fit a norm and have people peg me down as this type of Christian or that type of believer.  And how I understand I need to be more concerned and be less apathetic and indifferent. 

But I have also began realizing that that I need to be more purposeful in both verbalizing my faith and living my faith out in very meaningful ways and visual ways.

Combine all this with the fact that I am studying the book of Ecclesiastes right now, and holy crap, I am walking through some pretty heady stuff.

But the one thing that I truly know is that there is a hurting world out there that needs both the message of the gospel through my lips and the message of the gospel through my hands and feet. 

And at the end of the day, for me at least, it has to be both or it is not truly the gospel at all.

Anyway, that is what I am thinking about right now.  As always, I would love your thoughts.

S

It is Friday, and before I get to an OU prediction for the Big 12 Championship, I need to get some questions off my mind…

I don’t necessarily have the answers to these questions, but that is okay – questions don’t always need answers…

Unless you want to provide them in the comment section below…(hint, hint)…

The first question is something that is really bugging me lately: 

What’s the deal with people lining up in the cold at 4:30 in the morning the day after Thanksgiving to buy stuff they really don’t need to survive and can’t really afford the other 364 days of of the year?

And how did this whole “Black Friday” thing start anyway?  Maybe somebody could give me a history lesson…

Lastly on this topic, how many folks have to literally get injured or killed before stores take a look at this policy and figure out it is not a good deal?  5? 10? 25?  How many?

Moving on (sort of), and I am being serious here, is it possible in this country to discuss the true meaning of Christmas and not offend someone?

Thus, I am all about not having a state-run church, but to what length do we go to in that separation?

And why I am being so freaking deep today?

How about this one then: Is there ever an appropriate time for a man to wear a tank top?  Ever?

Have you ever watched a college or pro basketball game from a court-side seat?  If not, like Ferris said, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

Is there anything funnier than watching a two year old try to say “Christmas Tree”?  Not for my money…

And who’s with me is saying that we should figure out some way to do “spring and summer decorations” for our homes?  After all, we already have fall and Christmas decorations, right?  

Speaking of fall, how exactly does wind ”cut right through you”?

And why does this only seem to happen when it is cold?

Moving on to pop culture, what is the best 80’s movie that is still watchable (read: not too cheesy) to watch right now?  Well, the whole “not too cheesy part” cuts out like 95% of the movies made in the 80’s so you have your work cut out for you on that question…

Sorry if I am clueless, but who are Heidi and Spencer?

How massively shocked were my wife and I that Barbara Walters picked Barack Obama as the most fascinating person of the year?  Seriously?  Who saw that one coming?

Can anybody name the 5 Grammy nominations for album of the year that were just announced earlier this week without internet cheating it?  Okay, can anybody name just one of them?

Why does Mariah Carey still have a career?  Really?

And on the random front, soda, pop, or Coke?  If you understand the question, you will probably have an answer…

If cell phones cause cancer, what does it mean for me if I carry around two of them and an iPod all day?  Uh oh…

And lastly, and most importantly, Michael Phelps was named Sportsman of the Year this week by Sports Illustrated, and sort of reliving all of those Olympic moments made me wonder if anybody else was constantly uncomfortable with how low that dude wore his pants while he was swimming? 

Seriously, anybody else freaked out about that like I was?

Weekends are good, enjoy yours…

S

Let me just say one thing before I dive into this week’s music choice of an artist you are probably not too familiar with: it is hard to blog every freaking day…I mean real hard…

You ever get to that place at your job or home life or just the everyday stuff where you just feel overwhelmed?  Yeah, me too…

But at the end of the day, we just have to keep going, right?  We just have to put one foot in front of the other and finish the best we can…

But, still, it is hard to let those feet lead sometimes…

All that said, I love this blog…I love writing it, I love taking care of it, I love editing it when I write something totally stupid (I know, I know…That never happens, you say…Well, in fact, it does - often), and most of all, I love it when people come back over and over to read the pure and unadulterated “stuff” that comes out of my fingers and into these postings…That is a very inspirational feeling…

And like Robin Williams in the greatest film of my generation, ”Good Will Hunting”, said,  “I’m in”…

I just ask for your patience and your willingness to come back to the blog to check out what I have to say even when I have days like today…

So today as we dig into an indie band that is a little out of the mainstream, we are going to discuss a band called St. Vincent (and I actually dig the “Yes We Can” as the band’s quote on their Myspace page for some odd reason…If you are wondering what the heck I am talking about, follow the link above)…

Fronted by Annie Clark, St. Vincent is both avant gard and melodic, soft and pain inducing hard, sweet but a littler bitter - as in angry – and both inspirational and gloomily dark, too…It is sort of everything meloncholy and energetic all rolled into one…

But Ms. Clark’s voice is what gets me…Like a lot of the female artists I dig, her voice is strong and rangy and quite ear catching…She definitely guides the band through the songs, and she is the driving force behind the musical believability…Frankly, while there is nothing fantastic about the band’s predictable experimentation, she is the reason I like the band as a whole so much…

If I were to compare them to another band, I might say Elk City or an artist named Joan the Police Woman…Again, the common thread is the strong woman lead but also a willingness to let the sound be driven by that woman…It is almost like Ms. Clark is a solo artist but also wants to be a part of a collective body…Call it selflessness or a marketing ploy, but either way, I am down with it…

So I highly recommend that you check out the songs “Jesus Saves, I spend”, ”Now Now”, and “All My Stars Aligned” (which has a great piano part throughout the song) to get a pinch of their flavor…And let me know what you think – this is band, and especially a voice, I really dig…

And to conclude, look for a bigger and more diverse post tomorrow regarding some random subject like “why Oklahoma is a very cool state” or something…Okay, hopefully it will be a bit more creative than that because, really, this state is not for everybody…

I guess you’ll just have to come back to find out what this liberated mind comes up with to write about tomorrow…

Until then, faithful readers…

S

I have a lot of thoughts about what is happening in the world right now, but I figure the best way to wrestle with them is to ask you, faithful reader, to make this new media tool known as a blog a true two-way street…

Thus, I have some questions about pop culture, politics, sports, and even food to ponder and a big old box below this post for your answers…Enjoy…

Seeing that it’s Monday, I have to start out with this question: Will those kids ever freaking find out how you met their mother, Bob Saget?  Seriously, just tell them already…

And what will happen to Monday Night Football’s theme music when Hank Williams, Jr, finally joins his legendary father in the Grand Old Opry in the sky?

Speaking of which, why is it that the country crowd has a monopoly on the introductions to primetime football telecasts?  (And if you didn’t know, Faith Hill opens up NBC’s Sunday Football Night in America…)

Does it give anybody else the willies to talk to political grassroots activists who believe in the black helicopters?

And why do a lot of these people insist on showing up at American Majority events and then talk to me as if I care about who the next president of Belgium is and how he wants a one-world government?

Because here is the question I want to ask them: Would I rather protest the UN’s involvement in doing away with the United State’s embargo against Cuba in the middle of freaking November or hang out with my daughter while she says, “Ready…Stet…Gooooo” and then runs down the long hallway at our house as if she has nothing at all to worry about except if Da-Da is going to give her a big hug when she runs into his arms?

Which brings me to this question: Is it bad that I work in politics and have absolutely no desire at all to get involved in politics when it is not work related?

On to pop culture, anybody seen “Tropic Thunder”?  Is it actually as funny as it looks in the trailer?

And what about “Pineapple Express”?  That movie funny?

More to the point, does anybody else think that the trailer for “Pineapple Express” that used M.I.A.’s ”Paper Planes” was the best trailer ever?  I freaking do…

If not that trailer, then which one is the best ever?

Anybody remember “Popular” by Nada Surf, circa 1995ish?  Well anybody heard their new stuff?  You should take a listen (especially ”See these Bones”)…

And who here is like me and excited about Conan eventually taking over for Jay?

Do you think these two men look alike?           

Turning to more political stuff, is anyone else offended that President-Elect Obama brought back his presidential seal and then had the government set up a website called change.gov? 

And did they just magically create the “Office of the President-Elect”?  I have never heard of this until now…

Thus who else thinks Howard Kurtz is going to be blasted by someone somewhere in the mainstream media for this editorial?  And who can believe the garbage the MSM is doing as outlined in the story?

And even though I got that last story from there, why am I not as enthralled to look at Drudge throughout the day now as I was before the election?  Same goes with Newsbusters…

By the way, who here knows the name of their city council people?

And because I can’t think of a single effective transitional way to do this, I am just going to ask this question to my Chicago readers: How is it that people talk all the time about Chicago Machine Style Politics as if it is a really bad thing and yet the city is still run by Chicago Machine Style Politics?

Moving on to sports, who else missed the weekly OU Football score prediction on Friday because of the team’s bye week?  Okay, then…I guess I am the only one…

And who gets to go to the OU/Texas Tech game on Saturday night that will be on national television?  I do for one…Anybody else?

In regards to the NFL, how the crap are the Tennessee Titans 10-0?  This should not be happening…

And do you think I would have this attitude if I had any of the Titans on my fantasy football team?  Um, yeah, probably would think that actually considering wins and losses of teams do not play into fantasy football scoring…

And does the NHL still exist?

Does OKC have an NBA team now?  Cause I swear they look like a bad college team…

In reference to the blog you are now reading, why is it that my most popular post on “A Liberated Mind” is the one I where I laid out my “Top 10 Blog Ideas I am Fleshing Out Right Now” and yet I only covered maybe two of those topics?

What happened to “Wednesday’s Music Nobody’s Ever Heard of”?  Ah, look for a new band on Wednesday to find out…

And how about all those local stories you said you would write about?  Yeah…About that…

How much do I have to pay someone to be “Blogivist of the Month” now that I have an avatar?  Cause, really, I am willing to go up to like $100 because then if I win and get $200, then I have made $100, and that isn’t too bad for doing this crap…

Why am I so addicted to Facebook?  I mean, seriously, why?

Lastly, what is it about supreme pizza that is so good?  Seriously, have you ever thought about this?  Because on their own, the ingredients are not very good…Green peppers?  No thanks…Mushrooms?  Um, fungus…Sausage and pepperoni?  Okay, those are good on their own…Olives?  Not a big fan…Onions?  No way am I eating those by themselves…

Yet you put it all together, and for my dollar, you can’t beat it…

And wow, was that not the most random question possible to end this blog post?

S

I’m so tired of these mortal men with their hands on their wallets and their hearts full of sin…Scared of their enemies, scared of their friends, and always running for re-election…

So come to DC if it be thy will because we’ve never had a savior on Capitol Hill…

You can always trust the devil or a politician to be the devil or a politician…But beyond that friends you’d best beware ’cause at the Pentagon bar they’re an inseparable pair…And as long as the lobbyists are paying their bills, we’ll never have a savior on Capitol Hill…

All of our problems gonna disappear when we can whisper right in that President’s ear…He could walk right across the reflection pool in his combat boots and ten thousand dollar suit…

You can render unto Caesar everything that’s his, you can trust in his power to come to your defense…It’s the way of the world, the way of the gun…It’s the trading of an evil for a lesser one…

So don’t hold your breath or your vote until you think you’ve finally found a Savior up on Capitol Hill…

Watch the video and listen to the song here…

S

First off let me say that this has been a pretty historic week for “A Liberated Mind”…Not only has this been by far the busiest week in the site’s short history, but I also maybe made a little bit of an impact (I hope anyway) in how some conservative folks out there handled President-Elect Obama’s win historic win on Tuesday…

The story goes like this: back on October 21st I was feeling pretty down about McCain’s chances to beat Obama and thus in order to get myself into a better mood, I threw together a 5 point game plan of how conservatives should react to an Obama win…I titled the piece “The Conservative Reaction: A Call to Action“, and got my normal 20-25 views with no comments, and all was well with the world…

But then on November 4th Obama wins the election and random people all around the world start going to Google to find out the conservative reaction to the win…Well, since I had titled by post what I did, Google found me, and thus literally hundreds of people around the world found me, too…

Now obviously this increase of traffic was pretty dramatic to me, though for a lot of the national blogs a lot of us frequent this is the amount of hits they get every 10 minutes or so…But still…Personally I was extraordinarily excited that a few more people in this world at least took the time to see what I had to say about how conservatives should react to an Obama presidency - even if it was 2 weeks before the election…

So, yeah, it has been a pretty cool week around the water cooler of my blog, and though it doesn’t totally make up for the fact that the guy and girl I was rooting for lost on Tuesday, it was still very fascinating to see people hammer the site all day…

And with the site currently being at 942 overall hits, we are creeping closer to that magical 1,000 mark…So exciting I know…

But it is Friday, and that means quick hitters to get you into the weekend…

My first thought after accidentally catching part of a news broadcast on some channel last night was this:

“JUST BECAUSE A MAJORITY OF THE COUNTRY CHOSE OBAMA OVER MCCAIN DOES NOT MEAN THAT OUR COUNTRY IS NOW UNITED!  WHEN JUST SLIGHTLY MORE THAN HALF THE COUNTRY CHOOSES ONE GUY AND A LITTLE LESS THAN HALF OF THE COUNTRY CHOOSES THE OTHER, JUST BECAUSE YOUR GUY WON DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE OTHER HALF OF THE COUNTRY TOTALLY GOT BEHIND YOUR GUY!  SHOW ME A 75% APPROVAL RATING 100 DAYS AFTER HIS INAGURATION, AND I WILL MAYYYYYYYBE SHARE IN YOUR UNITED ENTHUSIASM…UNTIL THEN, QUIT CLAIMING WE ARE ALL UNITED AND EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW PRESIDENT…SOME OF US ARE NOT AS GIDDY AS YOU ARE…”

And I digress…And was the all caps a little bit of an overkill?

Reason #592,502 I love living in Oklahoma: I paid $1.95 for gas today…In some areas of OKC, it is lower, but I am good with $1.95…

And I drive a Honda Civic with a 10 gallon tank…Thus, when I had slightly less than a quarter tank today as I pulled up to the gas pump, after I had finished filling up my tank I had spent $16.65…LOVE IT!

So yeah, I am really glad the world is all excited about an Obama presidency…No really, I am…Yeah, I am not kidding about this…promise…really…No, really…

Because evidently it is cool to be an American again…That must meant that because of Bush it was not cool to be an American…Man, that guy really did have some massive power…Good thing we hated the man for the last 6 years or no telling what he could have done to us…

And yeah, I just  can’t wait until President Bush keeps getting hammered for at least 2 more years after he leaves office…

Cause here is the deal: two years from now our country will still be dealing with massive economic issues, we will still be entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will perhaps have been through 3 or 4 natural disasters and the government response will have still sucked, poverty and healthcare costs will still be major issues, social security will literally be on it last legs, and we will still definitely be a red and blue country and define ourselves as such…All the hope and change promised for 2 years will be hard to come by in my humble opinion, and someone will be looking for someone else to blame besides President Obama…

But I do hope he succeeds…And I am being serious about that…

Speaking of succeeding, right now Sarah Palin is getting hammered in the worst possible way…She is getting blamed every which way to Sunday about McCain’s loss even though Biden is getting no credit for Obama’s win…

My question is this: You think this will be kept up for 4 years because that many media elite don’t want her to run in 2012?  Man, it is like she is Satan’s sister or something…I feel so bad for her…

Um, what else?

Well, Derek Webb concert in Edmond tonight…And obviously you may not know who Derek Webb is, and if that is the case, go here and enjoy…I am going with just my wife, and we are excited about our date night without the kiddo…

And lastly, I will be some painting at the house this weekend and watching one football game: my beloved Sooners at Texas A&M…Here is the breakdown:

OU is really good and still in the national title hunt (barely)…A&M has been very up and down this year, but right now they are a bit up…It is in College Station, and historically we play so-so down there…

But this year, we are way too good, and they are way too young…Look for OU to pull away late: OU 49/A&M 21…

Hope everyone has a good weekend, and enjoy the fall weather rolling in across the country…

S

Considering I wrote that previous post last night at 1:00 in the morning (was that an oxymoron?), I left a lot out about what I wanted to open for discussion…But now it is 11:00 in the morning, I am feeling good, I am about to go to lunch, and here are some more quick thoughts…

In reference to “Camp Rock”, I am proud to say I have never heard a Jonas Brothers song before…And I only know of their association with Camp Rock because it is all over Target…Seriously, it is horrible…Kind of like The Jonas Brother’s hair…

The New Kids are back, and for some reason I am just as jealous of them now as I was during their heyday when I was 13 years old…That smells of irony…

Speaking of the New Kids, I gotta give it up to Donnie Wahlberg (is that two Wahlberg references in two posts?  Wow)…The guy has a pretty decent Hollywood career going (just great in “Band of Brothers”, brilliant in the now-cancelled “Boomtown”, and he stood out in the otherwide awful “Annapolis”), he gets to travel with the Boston Celtics to games outside of Boston, and he has basically become the de facto leader of the New Kids – which means he gets to talk in all the interviews…For my money, that is a pretty decent living…

And I will never mention he or the New Kids again…ever…promise…

And yeah, I have a Blackberry…Yeah, I carry it even when I am not “working” even though I have another cell for personal use…Yeah, I check sports scores on it and use it for directions…And yeah, I even love when it tells me I have an e-mail…But, no, I am not addicted to it…And no, you cannot take it away from me to prove it…

I bought gas today for $2.09…Ah, to live in Oklahoma…

New Vince Flynn book came out this week – for those of you into post 9/11 covert op thrillers, you can’t be Mitch Rapp…But this is the 10th book in the series, so yeah, if you really want to get into it, you gotta read 9 other books…Ugh…

What else?  Oh, saw Bill Cosby on TV this week, and he is looking aged…And I am not saying that is a bad thing – just the picture I have in my mind is him on “The Cosby Show” or even as a younger man on the cover of his comedy albums…Which are genius by the way…

Speaking of which, how did Frank Caliendo get so famous?

And just to let you guys and girls know, I average about 25 visits to my blog per 24 hours and around 100 views per 24 hours…This should be higher…So here is what we are going to do: If I can get it up to 50 visits per 24 hours and 150 views, everybody will get free postings for a year from “A Liberated Mind”…Sound like a deal? Alright!

How great is the fall foliage? Seriously, this is why the fall is the best season of the year…Heck, even the Today Show had a map of where the foliage is best right now during the show this morning…Just tremendous…Ah, to live somewhere other than Oklahoma…

Three words that will change a city: Oklahoma City Thunder…

That is what Seattle gets for having one of its citizens steal my in-laws camcorder out of our rental car when were there for our honeymoon several years ago…Okay, that had nothing to do with them losing their team, but still…

Most underrated American city I have been to: Durham, NC…

Most overrated American city I have been to: Columbus, OH – looked kind of dumpy to me…

And lastly, do you like the new season of “The Office”?  It has sort of lost its way to me…I think it is because Pam is not there…Yeah, she definitely needs to come back and come back now…

Okay, I am done…Promise…

Oh, and I love comments so post them if you got them…

S 

Upon receiving some good advice from the person I care the deepest about in this entire world, I am avoiding politics in today’s post…Like Southwest asks, “Wanna Get Away”?  Well, in reference to politics (especially the presidential campaign), today I do wanna get away…

On with the quick hits:

Went to Target this evening and everywhere I looked it was all about Camp Rock…Which made me wonder to myself, “What the heck is Camp Rock”?  I know, I know – I am 30 years old, completely out of the teenie-bopper loop, and overall a pretty big dork, but still…It makes me wonder if this has anything to do with High School Musical…Which is another massive deal I just absolutely missed out on…

Found out this week that my favorite show on televsion – CBS’ “The Unit” – will probably not make it out of the fall season intact…It is a pity, that show is pretty good…But maybe this is part of one of Jonas’ master plans that always seem to come together in the end when Bob and Mack end up killing all the bad guys with him…And since most of you (okay, all of you) didn’t recognized those names I just referenced, that just shows why “The Unit” is about to be killed off the air…

I am, however, getting into “My Own Worst Enemy” with Christian Slater…Yes, it is a bit (sarcastic “bit” by the way) far fetched, but still, it is quite entertaining and quite imaginative…Plus, there is a lot of shooting and covert ops stuff…Right up my alley…

It got cold in Oklahoma this week…I like the cold…Eh, just thought I would throw that out there for no apparent reason…

Oh, but my daughter did turn 2 this week…Yeah, that was a good time…Big party for the family coming up on Sunday…And with her being two now, we are noticing her repeat A LOT of what we say…During the aforementioned Target trip this week, I noticed my daughter had ripped a price tag off an item and I say, “Oh, crap”…No biggie, right?  Well, not until my daughter innocently repeats said phrase back to me as “Oh, twap”…Oh, twap indeed, little girl…

The World Series started this week with the Phillies taking the first game and the Rays tying the series up with a win tonight…And a total of 8 people outside of Philadelphia and the Tampa/St. Pete region knew about it…

Caught the SNL bit with Mark Wahlberg confronting Andy Samberg about his depiction of Wahlberg talking to animals…Didn’t really get it until I went back and watched the original skit that, again, depicted Wahlberg talking to animals…The first time I saw the “confrontation” between Samberg and Wahlberg, I was slightly amused…But then after I watched it the second time after having a little context to go along with it, I was again only slightly amused…Which begs the question: Where is Toonces the Driving Cat when you need him?

Is it is a reflection of Hollywood’s horrible movies or my lack of giving a crap that the last movie I say in a theater was the new Indiana Jones movie?  Is there good stuff out there right now that I am missing?  Seriously…

And “Saw 5″?  What?!?!  Did versions 2-4 go straight to DVD?  I remember when the first one came out, but now we are up to 5?  Really?

For some odd reason I rediscovered The Monkees as I was wasting time during lunch one day this week…Goodness, that show was freaking awesome!  And those guys actually were pretty talented…If you have iTunes, take my advice and go to the Music Store, do a search for The Monkees, find the album called “The Monkees Present”, and for 99 cents, download the song called “Listen to the Band”…Simply genius…

Speaking of music, after The Monkees broke up, Michael Nesmith (the guy in the show that wore the winter hat) broke off on his own and made some wonderful country-rock stuff…This blog posting has lots of info and lots of samples…Really extraordinary and wonderful “alt-country” stuff…

Speaking of music 2, Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish fame (by the way, “Cracked Rear View” was good, but their next two albums - ”Fairweather Johnson” and “Musical Chairs” were even better) just released a country album, and hearing the first single off of it (”Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It”), it is pretty decent country fair…While not a huge country fan, I still love his voice and his ability to lead a song where it needs to go…I can’t wait to check out the rest of the album – aside from the slide guitar I know is coming…

And finally, my beloved Sooners travel to the Little Apple of Manhattan, Kansas, to take on the Kansas State Wildcats this weekend, and I had honestly almost forgotten about this game this week because frankly it should not be close…The Sooners are very good, and the Wildcats are not very good…

After dispatching the Jayhawks last week at home, OU does the same with the Wildcats on Saturday…Final score is OU 49/K-State 14…And OU officially becomes the state champion of Kansas…

That is it for now…Everybody have a good weekend, and try your best to avoid that word that starts with ”pol” and ends with ”itics” if at all possible…We’ll pick that flag back up on Monday and run with it then…Oh boy, can’t wait for that…

S  

Loving the four day work week…Isn’t this what they tried in France?

Digging Joe the Plumber and feeling sorry for him all at the same time…Wow, what a media…

Saw a pretty decent debate (finally)…Which said media claims Obama won?  Really?  Makes you wonder what they were watching…

Got to know ACORN and William Ayers a little better…According to Obama, he doesn’t know them at all…

J-O-B-S…Three letters Joe Biden knows all too well…

A tightening race means I could be wrong…Not the first time, not the last…

Having two new shining faces in the office means both more stress and more fun…How is that possible?

Try having breakfast at a community airport on purpose with about 8 other guys at 6:00 on a Tuesday morning…You would be surprised…

Writing my longest post ever and still not being happy with the result shows how much of a perfectionist I am…Which could be good or it could be bad…

Hearing about Devon’s plan to take property taxes away from the county kind of got me all worked up…Good thing the local media picked up on it…What?  They didn’t?  No way!

Taking a trip to the Tulsa area to meet a future City Council candidate who is a solid conservative choice was encouraging for a couple of locals struggling to have their voices heard…

My favorite Major League Baseball player, JD Drew, coming through in the clutch for Boston - twice! – was about the best sports news I have had in a long time…And yeah, I stayed up and watched it…

Finding out about St. Vincent today was a welcomed surprise…

Lows in the upper 30’s means it’s time for sweaters…Finally…

And yeah, there is way too much other stuff on my plate that would be boring to discuss…So I will spare you…

But as you can see, this week has been long, it has been exciting, and it has been fast…And let me elaborate on some of the stuff above because a few of those items relate (somewhat) to my job… 

Just to clarify, I work for a company, American Majority, that is a non-partisan and non-profit organization that identifies and trains conservative candidates for public office ranging from city council and school board to state Senate and state House…

My job is to find these folks, train them on how to run good campaigns, and then prepare them to hit the ground running once they are elected…And it’s a fun job…Really fun…

And just to let everybody know, American Majority will be hosting two FREE candidate training seminars on November 14th and 15th in Tulsa and Oklahoma City…If you read this and want to find out more about getting involved in local government, running for a municipal office, or know anybody else who might want to, ask for more info in the comments section…

So yeah, that is what I am working on at work right now – and hence why I was travelling this week…Plus I am trying to keep up the blog – which was not updated yesterday for those very travel reasons…Sorry about that…

And since I missed my weekly Wednesday spotlight again this week (for the second week in a row as a matter of fact) check out the St. Vincent link above for some cool music you have never heard of…Great indie band with a cool sound…

Anyway, before I get on with the OU/Kansas score, I did want to mention that I am excited about a couple of ideas for next week’s blog postings…One of them will be a look ahead to post-election “A Liberated Mind” which will include some thoughts on how to make the blog a little more state based and a little more media bias focused in the future…

Another blog idea I have is about what we should do as conservatives if our candidate loses in November (and trust me, it will be as bad as we think – which might be good in the long term)…

And so, yeah, I got ideas floating around up there, I just need to take the time to get them out onto the blog…

But if you have anymore ideas, shoot them my way…And if nothing else, I need to keep in mind that a blog posting about Chris Faulkner and his hair always boosts readership for some reason…Interesting…

So to wrap this thing up for the weekend, look for a score of around OU 45/KU 21 tomorrow…Sorry, Ned and Beka…Looks like pizza for the OK office if Ned agrees to the terms…Nice…

And on that note, enjoy the weekend, and try not to do anything productive until Monday…

S

So last night my wife and I headed down to the Ford Center in OKC for the Third Day/Switchfoot/Robert Randolph and the Family Band/Jars of Clay concert that was a part of the “Music Builds Tour” put on to raise awareness and cash for Habitat for Humanity…Good bands, good cause, and a great time…

Oh, and as the tickets were a birthday gift from my wife, we were literally on the 9th row dead center…TREMENDOUS SEATS!

Anyway, though I am not at all a music critic, I would like to give my loyal readers a quick rundown of the concert and pass on a little bit of the fun stuff I enjoyed about the marathon show that last just under 5 hours…I’ll give my take on each band by the order they performed (and with pictures nonetheless – though they are from my cell so take them for what they are worth)…

Jars of Clay started the night off, and beforehand, my expectations for them were pretty high though I haven’t bought an album of theirs for maybe 7 years…But, I did love them while I was in college and thought they had a chance to put on a decent show with over 12 years of good, solid material to choose from…

Well, the first problem is that they all came out in all white clothes…It was kind of hard on the eyes to see the whole band in all white…And I am not sure how many people know this, but my wife informed me that white clothes sometimes make you look larger than you really are…Seriously? 

Well, that might have been the case because I remember when I saw these guys back in 1997, and they were young and fit…Now?  Um, old and not so fit…

And unfortunately, aside from a couple of their older songs I knew, I was pretty bored…Plus blinded…

But, their rhythm guitar player looked exactly like Chris Faulkner for those of you who know him…Yeah, seriously, he was totally Faulkner’s doppleganger to the point where I just started staring at him and envisioning Faulkner giving a presentation while hammering away on a guitar…Which is a pretty sweet vision by the way…

Anyway, you can judge for yourself…

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