hurricane

We visited friends in South Carolina and went to a wedding in Colombia this weekend, so we have been free of the hurricane that hit Florida, but it is breaking my heart what the people of this state are having to deal with. This picture is impressive, awe-inspiring, but reveals how much damage will be done.
Pray for Florida and those in Mississippi and Alabama who are in the path, it looks like it will be a long week for them all.

Today's rant

I stayed up late last night to watch Jay Leno. Lance Armstrong was on and I have been a fan of his for a few years now. I watch the tour on TV and kept up with it while mission in Florida with our youth. I like that he is from Texas, and he seems to stand for some wonderful stuff.
I also really enjoy the guys from American Chopper becuase they are funny and entertaining. They unveiled the LiveStrong Bike last night on Leno. It was one of the best late night lineups for a show like that in a long time. Tonight, music inspired by The Passion of the Christ is on featuring Third Day and Stephen Curtis CHapman, looks like bedtime at 12:35 again tonight. East Coast stinks for latenight TV.

But speaking about Lance Armstrong brings up a little issue that is gnawing at me. Back in May I bought a LIVESTRONG bracelet while in New York. Months later, they are sold out and the latest in a line of spiritual type ideas turned into a status symbol of pop culture (remember WWJD from the late 90's). Hollywood stars have them, some olympians even have two. The skeptical side of me wonders of all of those athletes with NIKE endorsements really gave their buck to cancer research or if NIKE had buckets of them in the olympic village to try to further popularize the bands through NBC's horrible olympic coverage. What really pisses me off is the folks who are selling these things on ebay for $25 bucks. I dont believe for a second that they are donating every extra penny they make to LAF and cancer research. I really hope they are, but am too cynical to beleive that.

So, since I have lived stronger than my LiveStrong bracelet, it broke last week, I will wear mine, one of the first made, patched together with a paper clip until the market is saturated. Then once the market is saturated, if it is, I will wear them longer than everyone else, to prove to everyone else that I am praying for cancer victims and cancer research, and though I can sometimes hit the front edge of a fashion trend, this is no such trend for me, but something that tugs at the base of my heart for some reason.

Finally, I am a bit suspicious of Lance's last year and the break up of his family, but I think I have decided to say a sentance prayer for that every time he and/or Sheryl Crow comes up. They are both really cool people and have done some interesting things in their personal lives (Remember My favorite mistake). None of it is really our business, but as a rule a family that is together is usually better than one that is split up by divorce.

Gear Update
I am signed up for my first guitar lesson tomorrow and just felt convicted to say that: though I have gear, I am only pretending to be a real musician. I got nothing but an Adam Sandler song or two under my belt.

gear

Well, yesterday I got to a right of passage, I now have gear. You see, and most who read this know, most musicians list the types of gear they use when they play their music. For example, Dave Crowder plays a Crowdster acoustic by Tom Anderson among other things. If you want to read his gear list, click here. (you will have to seacrch a little more). Yesterday, I got a marshall acoustic amp in the mail and it sounds great with my 91 chet atkins sst. I am really excited about all of this and look forward to playing with the chorus and reverb with my three chords until i leard some more stuff. I am planning to take some lessons though.

So for now, I proudly give you Aho's Gear:

I play a 91 chet atkins sst, it is natural finish with the faux sound hole. I play it through a Marshall AS50R acoustic soloist amp. Connecting the two is a vintage looking Spectraflex cable. I use energizer batteries in my guitar pickup since they were what the store had when I needed one, a Capo by Paige, and I have a Strap by Levy. Finally, I usually dont use a pick when I strum becuase I am too lazy to pick it out of the case, but when I use a pick, I usually use one of the Orange ones with the David Crowder logo on it that I got when I bought advanced copies of their Illuminate album. I also have a Epiphone acoustic that I paid $200 for about 9 years ago, it is a really lousy guitar and for a while I thought I could pass it off as a gibson. It is definitely not a Gibson, most epiphones aren't.