I need a job....

This is what happens when programmers have too much time on their hands...

A Nashville Tradition Revisited...

A Nashville Tradition Revisited...
Originally uploaded by DonnieHall

Hello gang....sorry that it has been so long. Between keeping a job and finding a job and hair-raising rides with a new driver, its been tough to get time to update everybody on what is going on.

So...let's see...
the job hunt is going pretty well, I'm getting a lot of interest from companies. I should have good news on that front pretty soon (hopefully).

I had a strange experience last Friday evening. We went to the FCS basketball game. This year the team is young, very young. Mostly freshmen and sophmores. It was almost surreal to me to see these boys on a varsity basketball court. I've been watching most of the play since they were 8 or 9 years old. It just didn't seem right for them to be out there.

I've been driving the truck pretty regularly....I love it. Something about driving a 5 speed pickup truck reminds me that I'm not all geek ;-)

Here's some pretty cool news. Chris (who at times is quite a ham) is doing live online play-by-play of the FCS basketball games. He loves sports, but didn't really latch on to playing basketball. But somehow, he got involved in doing the play-by-play. It's pretty cool. The web site is http://atwsportscast.com. I'll let you know when they are broadcasting. I'm just waiting for him to do his Waterboy impression during a broadcast...

We've been having some mobile phone troubles as a family, last weekend, we added a new phone to the mix which meant everybody switched around. I knew that was going to happen and was looking forward to it because I knew that I would get a phone with a better camera. Many times I've seen funny or interesting thing that I wanted to photograph and share. The camera on my previous phone was terrible, but now I have one that is pretty good. Blogger + Flickr + a good camera phone is cool for a blogger. (see comments)

Last night, I had to go to Nashville to install a new version of software at one of my client's office. I talked to Kathy before I left and she said that I needed to take the loop around Nashville because they had a sign on the old American General Building. It took me a while to get to where I could take a picture, but I thought I would share it.

For those of you who "ain't from around here", this building was originally the home office for American General Insurance. When they were based there, they always had a sign on the building. As a kid, it was always exciting to drive around the loop at night to see what it said. Several years ago, American General built another building and moved to Brentwood. The office building was bought by the State of Tennessee. They don't put messages on the building much any more...but it seems like they do around Christmas.

If you don't stop by this way again before Christmas....Merry Christmas to you and your families.

Woo! Hoo!

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while, I've been getting cranked up on a new project and trying to get caught up on some work that had been building up.

Anyway, here's what's going on...believe it or not, my pickup truck is road legal. Taxes, tags and everything. If you don't know the whole story, you can read about it here , here, here, here and here .

Chris' birthday was Monday. He's 15, you know what that means, that's right, learner's permit. Got it yesterday. We've been tooling around the church parking lot for several months, yesterday was the first trip on the road. We have some work to do, but he did pretty good. For those of you who know me, the red zone is about a 3 block radius around my house from approximately 3pm until 9pm. I'll update you when we venture further out.

Job update....I've been shaking bushes, waiting to hear from folks, Nothing definite yet. I've got some contract work lined up for a while. But I've got to get cranking on something permanent.

My friend Tim told me about something that I was really excited about. There is a restaurant in East Nashville called the Family Wash. It used to be a laundromat, but they converted to restaurant with live music. On Wednesdays, during December, they have a jazz ensemble that plays the music from a Charlie Brown Christmas. If you remember the music from Charlie Brown, it was always some jazzy piano licks. It was written by Vince Guaraldi. Several of the peanuts songs, particularly Linus and Lucy and Cast Your Fate To The Wind are now jazz standards. Kathy was a trooper and said that she would go with me, we got there, the place was packed. Kathy avoided the whole jazz thing again.

Well, I've got some work to do this morning...if you have some room on your prayer list, please put my job situation on there. Thanks.

The thrill of hope...

If you have even the most basic appreciation of jazz, you should buy this Christmas album (yeah, I still call them albums). I look forward to Thanksgiving every year because that's when you can start listening to Christmas music without feeling like a toad. This CD has one of the most stirring versions of O Holy Night ever.

Amazon has samples here.

It's starting look a lot like Christmas....

When I hear this song. Enjoy...

Rocking around the family tree....

Check out this post on snopes.com about the 2007 Lowe's catalog. I guess we are to believe that this tiny little mistake just 'slipped by' the proofreaders. Come on guys, everybody knows that Christmas is responsible for a majority of your income. There is nothing more important than the 'holiday' catalog. It is carefully crafted and poured over for months before being published. Don't do something like this and then try to weasel out of it. Stand up and say "We think there's more money to be made by appealing to non-Christians than Christians". Please don't insult our intelligence by trying to pass it off as a mistake.

On the flip side now, this begins the season where there will be many stories about company policies and retailers banishing the word Christmas from the workplace. There will be stories about Christians standing up for their right to say Merry Christmas or decorate their cubicle or whatever. My issue here is that I'm not sure that anyone is drawn to Jesus by people standing up for their 'rights'. If you are offended by someone saying 'happy holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' Jesus gives us some pretty clear instructions on how to deal with offenses.

If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.

I don't believe that in his teachings or in his example, Jesus was very concerned about our rights.