Today I was a witness to an event few people will ever have the privilege of beholding.

I went into a Shell station this morning to use their restroom. There was one toilet and one urinal. The thing I needed to do required the toilet. While I was doing the thing I needed to do a man walked into the restroom wearing blue sweatpants and sandals.

From underneath the stall wall I could see him walk up to the urinal in a most conventional way. Then he turned around and faced away from the urinal in a most un-conventional way. Then I heard sounds. Sounds that would indicate a very highly un-conventional use of a urinal. Then I heard someone walk in the door and immediately walk out. Then I heard two flushes. Then he started over for another pass as it were. Then two more flushes and an exit.

Surely he didn’t just…

Upon exiting the stall I learned that oh yes he did.

For those of you who have never used a men’s restroom I might remind you that there is no toilet paper at the urinals.

I saw the guy in the parking lot talking to his family like nothing had ever happened. I imagine he’s going to have some splainin’ to do the next time his wife does the laundry.

If I see one more Cardinal reliever come in and go 0-2 on a batter and then susequently walk him I’m going to become a Cubs fan.

Grocery shopping on Monday evening is the most depressing way to spend money.

Who does my DVD player think he is always telling me that this operation is currently prohibited?

The “back” button on my mouse doesn’t work in Firefox or Opera. Always moving forward ’cause we can’t find reverse.

Riley wrote out the words to the Doxology tonight. Here’s what it said.

Praise God from who ma blessings flow

Praise him all creachers here below

Praise Him up of he hevenly host

Praise Father Son & Holy Ghost

On the back of the page was “Amen. Presbetierien song.”

Two, two, two posts in one day.

There’s this little guitar lick I’ve been working on as a picking exercise that I thought was kind of cool. I didn’t intend to use it in a song until today. So I sat down and put some simple chords changes under it and it immediately sounded ridiculous. It sounded like the soundtrack to the montage section of a bad 80′s movie.

I found it so entertaining that I went ahead and put a second guitar part on it and a rhythm section. This is so far from the stuff I usually write but it got me to laugh so I thought I’d share.

This is not really how I play the guitar but it was fun to wear that hat for a day.

Here’s the mp3.

Last Saturday was such a beautiful day that we decided to revel in the beauty of God’s creation by going to the library. Being outside is highly overrated. Besides, who can honestly resist the smell of a seventy-five year old book?

I read a lot, and up until a few weeks ago I was on quite a tear reading one book on theology after another. Then I decided to take a break from the non-fiction stuff and read The Pilgrim’s Progress. A few pages in to that sucker and my reading frenzy ground to a complete halt. Sorry. I know it’s one of the most famous Christian books ever and all that but I just couldn’t do it. I’ll get back to it on my death bed or something.

So back to the library. I wanted to get back to the historical Christian non-fiction genre so I found St. Augustine’s “Confessions” (397-398) and Thomas A Kempis’ “The Imitation of Christ” (1418) in one volume. These are probably two of the most influential non-fiction books in the history of Christendom. And the smell of the book was downright stellar so I grabbed it.

I also grabbed “The Story of Our Hymns“. I’ve read just enough of it to realize that I’m a hack songwriter. I also learned that church organists are never to put the seventh in the dominant chord of a hymn. Interesting. No, seriously. That’s very interesting. I guess I’d never considered it before. Too much pull back to the tonic might just send the crowd into a frenzy.

The last book I grabbed was a gigantic book of lullabies. Lots of babies falling out of trees and the like. Really captivating stuff. I’ve actually written a few of my own. My favorite one goes like this.

Hush little baby, if I have to tell you one more time to turn your light out and go to sleep you’re going to be sorry.

Gentle child, be quiet. Be quiet. BE QUIET! STOP SINGING AND GO TO SLEEP!!!

You’re not hungry. You’re sleepy.

No you don’t need another drink puddin’ cakes.

I told you to go potty before you got in bed now just hold it oh apple of mine eye.

When we all woke up this morning Angel, Riley and I all gathered on my bed to wrestle with the dog and enjoy the fact that nobody had to go to work today. Angel thought that Riley and Lilly were being so cute that she grabbed the camera to capture the moment. Here’s what she got.

Happy 4th of July and may all your puppies be as sweet as ours.

Yesterday was a good day.

I didn’t even have to use my AK. - Ice Cube

Yesterday morning my new PC arrived. Yeah so it’s like totally really fast and stuff. And quiet too. Good grief. Now I don’t have to have the sound of a screaming CPU fan in all of my acoustic guitar tracks any more.

So I’ve spent hour after hour yesterday and today getting everything installed and set up which has not been without moments of panic. Most notably was the incident today when I was trying to install some Waves plug-ins and right in the middle of the installation I got the blue screen of death (or whatever it’s called…it was blue…whatever) and an immediate, involuntary shut down. Upon rebooting it got about half way through the boot cycle and up pops the same screen as the screen where my last PC died. The one that says “You are doomed. Something has gone horribly wrong and yes, it was your fault. Would you like to boot Windows in safe mode…” and on and on. I chose to boot windows normally (the least ominous sounding option) and after staring at a blank screen for what seemed like and eternity, it did boot like it was supposed to and everything was fine. Thanks Bill Gates. You’re the best.

I said yesterday was a good day – not today. So let’s talk about yesterday some more.

A few days ago Jeff H (frequent commenter around these parts, who was, by the way, one of the guitar players for the Fugitive Popes – that band I played in in Nashville – although Jeff’s stint in the Popes and my stint did not overlap – we’ve met once) emailed me and said he and a couple of buddies were coming to St. Louis to see the Rush show last night. He asked if I’d be interested in meeting them for pizza at Imo’s before the show. I was very interested. We email each other all the time but have never really hung out.

Then yesterday morning another friend of mine, Joe Y, called and said he and a couple of buddies were coming into town to see the Rush show and they had an extra ticket and wanted to know if I could go. Could I?!? Yup.

So I met Jeff and his crew at Imo’s and we had a great time talking music for a couple of hours and exchanging our best nightmare gig stories. He won.

Then I met Joe and his friends for the Rush concert which was pretty phenomenal I gotta say. Those guys still got it that’s for sure. They played for three hours. Three hours!!! Do you know how hard it is for thousands of drunk people to dance in 7/8 for three hours?

Of course they made us wait until the end to hear Tom Sawyer and YYZ, which I guess I should have expected. I kind of got the chills a little bit seeing Neal Peart play the eight bars of drum solo in Tom Sawyer. That’s, like, the eight bars that launched a million drumming careers. Very cool.

Check out this Ian Moore video for a second. Well, at least try to get to the chorus.

If you don’t know who Ian Moore is he happens to be one of my musical heros. At the beginning of his career he was one of these impossibly-good-looking-Texas-blues-guitar-player-stud types. He also happens to have one of the most awesome singing voices I’ve ever heard. The Drew Johnson Band opened for him a number of years ago and I got to hang out with him after the show and pick his brain quite a lot. Definitely one of the highlights of my musical “career”. But that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is that he’s wearing a ton of glammy makeup in this video. I was shocked when I saw this being that it seemed so incredibly out of character for him.

That got me thinking about something that I’ve considered many times before: how does a band make the decision to wear makeup? There have been a few bands around town that I’ve known and gigged with who have worn makeup and I always wanted to ask whose idea it was. I always imagined a band rehearsal where one guy finally works up the courage to say “Hey dudes, what are your thoughts on lipstick? Because, I like, totally think it’s right for us.” Maybe that’s not how it works. I don’t know. I just think of the severe beating I would have gotten had I suggested such a thing to any of the bands I’ve played in.

Next thought.

Here’s a video I found of Fiona Apple, Jon Brion, and Nickle Creek singing “Tonight, You Belong To Me.” I love this song and I happen to think that this song provides the most touching moment in The Jerk. I wish I could write songs like this.

Next thought.

A bizarre string of Internet searches this weekend led me to a picture of the store Angel and I worked at in Nashville. It was the Sam Goody at Harding Mall. It was this very store where Angel first cast her gaze upon me and my long, golden locks. She was walking by the store (this was before she worked there) with one of her friends and saw me standing behind the counter and said to her friend “That’s the guy I’m going to marry.” That is the honest truth. So she picked up an application and the rest is history.

Here is a link to the picture. It’s the second store on the left with the pink neon sign.

Next thought.

Angel had a wonderful opportunity this weekend to show just how much she really loves me. This story is rather gross so I’ll try to be as Christ-like as I can in the telling.

We were watching TV Friday night and I got this really bad itch on my left cheek…and not the one on my face. I didn’t think much of it because I happen to be a bit of a bug bite collector. But this itch was pretty intense and there was quite a lump to boot. Angel and I went in the bathroom and closed the door so she could take a look; possibly the most un-flattering moment of my life. She said “There’s a big black spot right in the middle of it.” I told her it might be a tick. I’ve never had a tick before but the thought just jumped in my head.

I’d always heard that tick-removal involves heating up a needle over an open flame and then using in to politely encourage the tick to step away from your skin. We didn’t have a needle handy but Angel grabbed some tweezers and got them red hot. At this point she was pretty sure it wasn’t any kind of creature, she just thought it was the head of the bite. When she touched the tweezers to the thing she immediately became convinced otherwise. I could tell by her repeated screems. “It’s legs just moved!!!” Ok well now we both agree that it is in fact a tick.

The digging and grimacing went on for about five minutes. Ticks have quite the little grip.

She was finally able to remove the thing from my rear. My first point of business was to make sure she still loved me after such an incident. She did…a smidge.

After some Internet research she informed me that the particular type of tick that had violated me didn’t really pose much of a threat as far as diseases go. The Internet said that it would continue to itch for about twenty-four hours and then everything would be fine. That has not been the case. Now the skin around the point of entry is all hard and irritated and it itches like nobody’s business. I’ll be going to the doctor tomorrow since I not only collect bug bites, I also collect humiliating incidents in the presence of women.

Around Mother’s Day our camera went missing. Around yesterday afternoon it turned up in one of Riley’s many backpacks. I know. Your guess is as good as mine.

To celebrate its return I thought I’d post a few of the pictures that returned with the camera.

We have a lot of these.

This one was taken at the Shriner’s Circus just after watching some bears ride bicycles. Possibly the most awesome thing ever.

This is a cake Angel had her friend Missy (our own personal Ace of Cakes) make for me on our anniversary. For more info on the theme of the blue turtles read this post.

There’s an interesting story that goes along with this next picture. The boat that Riley is in is a boat that my folks bought when I was probably thirteen years old, so that would be about ten years ago. This boat has been sitting unused in my garage for about the last fifteen years. I figured that Riley was about at that age where a boy should learn to fish, so a few weeks ago I dug it out and got it all cleaned up.

I don’t have a truck to haul the thing in anymore but I do have a super tough and cool Escort wagon with a luggage rack so I figured that would have to do. On this particular Saturday morning I heaved the boat up onto the car and tied it vehemently and redundantly to the car. This took a long time. A long time. Then I loaded up all of my fishing gear (that I’ve owned since I was a kid which now smells like fifteen years in a garage) and all of Riley’s fishing gear (that smells like Wal Mart) and we headed to the lake.

After arriving at the lake I had to repeat the boat tying routine in reverse. This took a long time. A long time. Then we had to wait for a few guys to load out their huge boats at the boat ramp before I could drag our boat into the water by hand. Then I took a few pictures. Then we finally pushed off for our first father and son bonding/fishing adventure. I was very excited.

When we had pulled about ten feet past the boat dock my phone rang. It was Angel. She needed to know if I had left her the key to the Neon, our other car, because she had an eye doctor appointment in forty-five minutes.

I should mention here that we only have one key to the Neon and it’s on my key ring. Of course we have two keys to the Escort so it never dawned on me to take Angel’s keys and leave her mine when we went fishing.

So our first fishing trip lasted from the boat ramp to the end of the dock before I had to load the boat back onto the car (did I mention how long that takes) and go straight back home to take Angel the key to the Neon.

By the time we got home I was so frustrated that we just decided to stay home and try fishing some other day.

Today was dump-the-camera day so I thought I’d share.

Last Saturday we went to The Butterfly House. What a cool place. If you look very closely, there are actually 273 butterflies in this picture. See if you can find them all. I’ll wait.

Only seconds after this next picture was taken, this sweet little butterfly burrowed into Angel’s ear and ate her brain. We like her a lot better now.

After losing her brain Angel wanted to snuggle with me on the couch.

On our way to the The Butterfly House we bought Riley one of his favorite cookies: Burn Victim Happy Face.

Here is what a staph infection boil looks like after it has almost completely drained and healed.

You’re welcome.

Here is a close up if you’re into that sort of thing. I decided not to post this one directly because it’s rather disgusting.

The picture on the left was taken the Sunday before Easter. After seeing the picture we decided that Riley needed to drop a few pounds before making his big debut at church wearing his new Easter outfit. So we put him on a very strict diet and exercise regimen consisting of only water and raisins with a 90 minute run each day. It really worked. You can see in the picture on the right (taken Easter morning) that he is much more fit. We are such great parents.

I think it was just the haircut and the smile that makes him look thinner but whatever. I’ll have to try that.

Angel and I got a new set of sheets and a new comforter for our bed because Lilly decided to turn our old comforter into a couple of pieces of chewed fabric surrounded by piles and piles of stuffing. She was so proud. We weren’t.

Here are the new sleeping arrangements.

I got a new guitar pedal for my birthday yesterday. As you may or may not know my birthday is September 26th. That means for me to be able to get this pedal I had to do some financial finageling coupled with some serious up-kissing to my wife. Musician’s Friend is offering a 12-month free financing deal right now. So I told Angel that I would go ahead and get the pedal now and then pay the thing off with my birthday money that should total the exact amount needed. It’s sort of like the gear futures market. She acquiesced. I squealed. Everyone was happy — except Angel.

It’s the Vox Tonelab LE. This pedal essentially buys back my Dr. Z, my Matchless, my Marshall, my Boogie, my Twin Reverb, and the Fender Deluxe I borrowed for tracking the Formula Kid record. It sounds incredible. I am completely blown away.

So this means I now have fake drums, fake guitar amps, fake pianos, and a fake orchestra. As soon as someone designs some vocal emulation software that will allow me to track my own vocal and then apply Bono’s voice instead of my own I will finally be able to remove myself completely from all of my music. I can’t wait.