Can I Use the Same Title Twice?

I was going to name this blog, "On the Horizon", but alas, I have already used that name! But this shall be "On the Horizon II". "Event Horizon"? Isn't that a movie...? Anyway...

W

Church Life

WWSo things have been good lately. I am excited, because on Father's Day I have the priviledge of leading worship at my church! Yay! The other 3 experienced worship leaders will be out of town that week, so I get to take the reigns for a week. I sure hope and pray it goes well. I'm sure it will be fine. I'm practicing and working on my song list already. I get to play my new guitar! I've never played using a guitar strap/standing up before (other than at home for a couple minutes). This will be a new experience, and I'm sure good practice.

W

"Bodily Exercise"

WWThe Bodily exercise continues to profit-- I weighed 119.8 the other day! With clothes! (But before lunch...) I typically weigh around 121. And for my birthday, my landlady Tamala and friend Anna took me out clothes shopping (these are some stylish girls here), and I got some really nice new clothes. It was like TLC's "What Not to Wear", only they did all the picking and I still had to pay for it. Kind of backwards, but it works! I actually liked them picking things, because I rather dislike clothes shopping. (And they love it! "Oh, look! How cute!" Another thing added to the cart... That's 20 items now...)

WW The most shocking thing of all-- and this is the part that is relevant to exercising-- is that my new pants are a size 4! Size FOUR! Wow! And my button up shirts are both "extra small"! I was wearing mediums and size 8 pants before! You know though, I lost some weight before I started working out, so my size 8's were probably a little too big before hand. But I was shocked and amazed that anything labeled "extra small" or "size 4" fit me-- and fit well.

W

Work Life

WWLife at work might be changing soon too. A new management position opened up at work, and I threw my resume into the hat. It's a rather... how do I say it lightly... undesirable position, in that it requires one to cover branches ranging from El Cajon (may as well be in Mexico it's so far south), and Beverly Hills, L.A. -- Those are very far apart from one another! I did some mapping, and for me to do a round trip circuit to just the L.A. branches, it would be 226 miles and 4.5 hours of driving (without traffic-- 6.75 hours with traffic). That's about $113 in gas mileage reimbursement from the company (for one trip, and this would happen at least once a week)-- not counting hotel costs for likely stays overnight (because half your work day was spent driving). Yeah, not fun.

WWI figured taking the train and renting a car would be cheaper (and save my car too), but I emailed the top dogs and suggested maybe two managers would be better, one for L.A. and one for San Diego, who meet on a regular basis (somewhere in between L.A. and SD) to form a unified team... We'll see how well that goes over. Even my current supervisor didn't apply for the job because he thinks it's so not worth all the stress (he currently drives all over just San Diego to do paperwork for the 7 branches here). Hopefully they realize how much money it would cost to fulfill their proposed management restructurization-- companies are in to saving money, right?-- and then I'll get a nice management position without all the driving.

W

Well, that's it for now! Happy June!

New Guitar

W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
WWWWSo I just got my first acoustic-electric guitar! I had been wanting to get one for a few months ever since I have been playing music solo; I haven't had someone else's guitar to use at gigs so I've been limited to playing piano or trying to lug my case-less no-pickup guitar with me. Sure, you can use a mic and don't need a pick up-- but the no case thing was a major hindrance. I could have spent some money to buy a case, but why bother when you know you are going to get a new guitar sometime in the near future? Plus my guitar is a cheapie $89 starter. Sounds great for what it is, but it was time to move on...
W
WWWWI'd been toying with getting a Taylor or a Martin-- I'm partial to Martins just because that's the first "real" guitar I played-- but after playing a few Taylors, I was firmly decided on a Martin. I had gone to Guitar Center a week or so ago and tried out various models. Out of their (affordable) options, I left with the DC-16GTE Premium in mind. A dreadnought model, it had a rather large body (see pic) and I didn't find it particularly attractive. But that's secondary to great sound, and that it had. I also liked the pickup, how you could go between its pickup and an internal mic with a gooseneck (you can see it in the pic inside the sound hole). The guys at the store were asking if I should get something a little smaller... because I'm rather... small.
W
WWWWI went down to Buffalo Bros. Guitars today and checked out some Taylors and various Martins. I peeked at the other brands but didn't try them ($$$ from what I could see). They had a rather unimpressive selection of Martin guitars, and didn't have the model I mentioned above to even compare to others. The only dreadnoughts they had (large body is ugly, but has a great sound) were acoustic with no electronics, too expensive, didn't have the cutaway I wanted, or just didn't sound great. So I tried a "regular" guitar-- not a dreadnought or jumbo body. I doubted I would like it since, in my opinion, they usually have a flat, small, blah sound (in comparison)-- but this particular guitar did sound great. And so I took it to the amp room and played it for a good while plugged in and unplugged. And I really enjoyed it, liked the sound, and had a good feeling about it, and so I bought it! The Martin 000C-16GTE Aura. I dig it! It sounds awesome! I also got a totally COOL (but very girly) strap! (And don't worry, I didn't pay the list price in that link...! Nowhere close!) Here are some pics:
W

All the Pretty Flowers!

I was totally blessed the other day when much to my suprise, my friend's mom came into my work (right across the street from her own job) and presented me with a beautiful little vase full of freshly picked roses from her garden! I had been missing her, so it was nice to see her, and it was just so sweet to get such pretty flowers! So to make the most of them, I took many, many pictures of them-- each day as they unfolded further into their full bloom, I would snap pictures to capture their beauty. My only qualm was that I couldn't photograph their smell-- oh, it was amazingly sweet!

W

Here are some pictures I took.

W