Don’t Let The Door Hit You in the…

Buh, bye Manny.  Thank you for the good times, but we have had enough!

Welcome, Mr. Bay.

Animal Rights Terrorists

A young Alabama boy gains internet fame a year ago after shooting a prize wild pig, which weighed in over a 1,000 lbs.

Since then, his family has been hassled by a group of radical animal rights activists intent on causing both civil and physical harm to him and his family.

“You should see some of the emails and hear some of the calls we have received,” Jamison’s father said. “They are explicit. They tell how they are going to kill my son, like cutting his head off.”  Click here for the rest of the article.

I am not surprised.  The animal rights groups have long been hypocritical.  While claiming to love animals, they will stop at nothing to injure a fellow human being.  A fellow human being doing what is only natural.

Now, was this kid advocating the harm of other human beings when he legally badged that hog?  Was he bombing other nations for oil?  Nope.  He was out having a good time with his father, his father properly mentoring him, and he now faces death threats from people who claim to love animals.

I guess these people feel some wild hog is more important than a normal American kid.

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Saturday Drive

We woke up Saturday bored and anxious to travel around a bit.  So we headed down 287 and stopped in Somerville.  We used to live near this town, and being the closest town with a downtown, we hung out quite a bit.  There is an old strip mall in the middle of town that is in the process of getting demolished to be replaced by more storefronts which will extend the downtown.

Somerville is the county seat of Somerset County and houses the county court and jail, I think.  A good crop of restaurants, funky shops, but lacks a downtown park.  We still enjoyed our time there.

After that, we decided to head towards Princeton.  Fully set on spending our afternoon in Princeton, we instead swung out to Philadelphia.  Yeah, just a little bit out of the way, but hey, we were in a driving mood.  Once in Philly, we spent a ton of time walking around South Street.  We used to come down to Philly about once a year, but it had been a couple years since we’ve done this.

Philly is unique in its own sense with the variety of architectural styles.  The row houses are interesting, and street by street, it is a guess whether or not the neighborhood is totally gentrified, or remains in its somewhat original state of Philadelphia grittiness.

What is a trip to Philadelphia without a cheesesteak?  We hit up Geno’s, I had a wiz witout, while my wife had an American with.  This is the first time I had Geno’s.  I’ll be sure to stop by again.  Well worth the long wait in line.  While in line we struck up a conversation with a guy and his son who just left the Phillies game.  Turns out, he too is from New England, but relocated to Philly.  Incidentally, the Phillies won, so the city was in good spirits that night.

One definite positive I noticed is that the parking is nowhere near a hassle as it is in Boston or NYC.  I was able to park right on South Street across from the new Whole Foods and later only a block away from Geno’s in their Little Italy neighborhood.  Maybe it is because the majority of people hanging out in Philly are locals just walking or biking it.

I saw a ton of fixies around Philly.  That was a little funny to me.  While these folks are set on proving their individualism, most of them failed with their similar style and bicycles.  Ah well, we are all young at one point in life.

After polishing down the cheesesteaks, it was late and time to head home.  I figured I had enough gas left to make it to the Trenton NJ area where gas is cheaper.  I barely did.  My meter was down well below E and I figured my tank was running on fumes by the time I found a gas station in Trenton that was actually open.  What is up with that area of Jersey?  Does everything close at 10:30?  The gas station I found was willing to serve gas even though they just closed a few minutes ago.  The 4 other were unwilling.

Other than the scare of almost stalling in Trenton, the trip was fun and easy.  Philadelphia is a good option to NYC maybe once a year.

Kemper Crabb and Artistry

Growing up, I received the magazine HM (Heaven’s Metal) as a gift from my Uncle Mike.  Towards the back of the magazine, there used to be an article (and it may still be there, I need to resubscribe to HM) called The Christian & Art.  These were always interesting articles that ran deeper then the typical interviews and album reviews throughout the rest of the magazine.  From spirtuality to artistry in the Christian life, he obviously knew what he was talking about.

So, after reading the HM editor’s blog on his site, he mentioned Kemper and sparked a flood of memories.  Curious to see how he is doing, I checked out his site: http:\\www.kempercrabb.net.  He is a pastor, and a worship leader traveling around with various messages and concerts. From the video here, his Christmas concert looks awesome:

Most notable was his solo album “The Vigil” which was appreciated by the likes of Kerry Livgren, SRV, and R. Wakeman.  Click here to order (and no, I’m not getting any money for this link).  Check out the reviews, nothing but solid admiration of this album.  I believe my Uncle had this one and spun it quite frequently back then.

He is also in the band Atomic Opera and Arkangel.

Basically, a man like Kemper seems to have no limits in creativity.  As a Christian, and especially as a musician, it is easy to become pigeon holed into one particular genre.  It is all too often rare that Christians are the ground breaking cutting edge individuals setting the standards for the arts and music.  Just listening to some of his music, I realize that I have a long way to go.

Careers

Lately I’ve been thinking about careers.  More accurately, I’ve been thinking about what I would like to do for the rest of my life.  I’m not so sure it is in technology.  The problem is, I really have no idea what it would be.  I love music, but I don’t feel my abilities are enough to warrant a job that pays enough, if anything.  I also don’t really know where my skills and abilities lay.

Some people seem to plan their life out and follow it to the smallest of details.  My life hasn’t been that way.  Sure, I set out to become a systems specialist (and here I am) when I was a newlywed with the ultimate goal of working in music.  Other than that, I am not making the desired amount of money (though I am blessed, trust me), and it hasn’t been the smoothest ride.

New Metalmember – Jeffrey Thomas

Welcome new member of the family, Jeffrey Thomas.  He was born yesterday at 4:24 PM weighing in at 8lbs, 6oz and 20.6″.

Impending Doom

It is coming fine folks.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that we as Americans are in for some rocky times.  You think the dollar is at an all time low?   You ain’t seen nothing yet.  I’ve posted about this before, and I’m posting about it again, but we have made a total mess out of this country.  That is right, we!  You can’t just blame anyone person.  If you took out one of those dandy ARM loans and couldn’t afford it when the interest rate shot up, then you were foolish.  A culmination of idiots from the White House to the poor house, are to blame for our situation.

Will America recover?  Maybe.  It won’t be the same though.  You won’t like the way things are run.  Overregulation will be a way of life.  It stands to get worse before it gets better.

But Metaljaybird, you’re just a crazy lunatic libertarian preaching conspiracy theories.  Right.  All you naysayers that were saying “No, the housing market won’t bust” are now scrambling for your lives to try and get next month’s payment.  While you drive your big SUVs still making monthly payments to, you no longer say “Fill er up with premium”, now you’re stuck at saying “25 regular” with your sad frown as you can no longer afford your exaggerated way of life.

Face it, times have changed.  I am no perfect soul, but my wife and I worked hard a few years ago to pay off our credit cards (they are gone now), school loans, and car loans.  We read between the lines.

This is nothing to celebrate.  No, but it is something that we should all have expected, not just the crazy anarchists and libertarians.

My advise:  Pack some lead and learn how to shoot a pistol.  Purchase a shotgun and defend your family.

Hitler Christian?!?

A commenter recently stated:

Hitler was a devout Xian. He’s one of yours, not ours. You can deny it all you want, but head over to your favorite quotation web page and look him up. Stalin you say? Stalin’s problem with religion was about removing a rival powerbase. The gunmen were all Xian. Saddam and bin Laden had Allah on their side. Bush thinks Jesus told him to invade Iraq. Even if the wars were territorial, each side vehemently proclaimed that their god was on their side.

What?  This is news to me.  Did he follow Jesus’ example by loving their neighbor?  Did he turn the other cheek?  Was Hitler really a Christian?

No.  The truth is, Hitler was a secular atheist who used religion to promote his socialist government.  The national socialist.  Hitler’s buddy, Raushning stated, “You’re either a Christian or a German, you can’t be both.”

After all, I don’t recall God stating Mein Kempf as his Holy Word.  Well, evil old Hitler replaced the Holy Bible with his book in schools, and Nazism (not Christianity) was declared the state religion.  Besides, he massacred 1000s of Christians who either opposed the government, or helped their Jewish brothers.

Does this sound like someone who claims to be a Christian?

“‘It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood”.

Yeah, the neo-pagan himself, Adolph Hitler said that in reply to his disdain towards.  Hitler intended and is quoted as saying he is going to stamp out Christianity.  Hmm…that sure doesn’t sound like someone who abides by the Gospels.

No kiddos.  Hitler was a war mongering envious dictator who used religion to gain power, and once power was obtained, threw out his rhetoric and embraced his secular longings.

The point is, many claim to be Christians, but we all know we will know them by their fruit.  His fruit was rotten to the core.  No love for Christ there.

Yes, the Yellow and Black Attack!

For some reason my Pandora metal channel started playing a bunch of Christian metal.

First Disciple, then Tourniquet, and now…

….

STRYPER!!

Yeah, that’s right, I like the Yellow and Black Attack!

UPDATE:

Now some Bloodgood.  Yes, 80s metal it up!

It Happened Again ?!*>#^v??

So I return home after a long bike ride in which I got lost for awhile.  I’m carrying my bicycle down the stairs and my wife explains, “Where have you been?”  She looked like she was in tears so I immediately thought she was in labor or something happened to my daughter.  Thankfully it was nothing that serious (though the labor will be coming any day now).

She was driving home after picking Kirsten up from her daycare stopped at a red light.  When the light turned green, she drove straight, and the person from the other direction turned left right into the driver side doors.  Man.  The same thing happened two years ago when we were close to delivery with our other child.

While the other driver is obviously at fault, I just hope that the stories are straight on the police report and that we experience no hassles from the insurance company.