Blogging Ottinger (tim)

I mixed equal-ish parts Tien Tsin peppers and Ancho peppers, and have been adding it into my hot cocoa. The cocoa mix is Libby’s riff on Alton Browns recipe from Food Network.

I use a coffee stirrer, the ones that are like two skinny straws, and scoop the pepper blend out of a little cup. I put about three “dips” of chilis into a coffee cup of cocoa. It is really very nice.

Cayenne, eat your heart out. This is FAR better.

I totally dig Ashley Cleveland, and my wife totally doesn’t. But I just found out that she has a Youtube channel. Awesomeness follows:

Neal Schon, Ross Valory, Ansley Dunbar, Greg Rolie… what a great start they had. They were originally more of a progressive jazz/fusion act, but apparently none of us heard of them until they picked up Steve Perry as a vocalist and turned to pop/rock. While I like Rolie’s voice better, and have to roll my eyes a little at the androgynous appearance of Perry at the time, I can’t deny that Steve Perry had a considerable gift and a very distinctive sound. That said, my favorite parts of most songs was always the guitar solo.

I think that somehow Steve Perry had the kind of effete look that girls in high school found totally appealing. It really seems confused to me, but there you go.

Schon and Rolie were both from Santana. Dunbar came from Zappa and later moved on to Jefferson Starship and Whitesnake. After Dunbar, the amazing Steve Smith took over (see some of his solo work and Vital Information for tasty, tasty jazz drumming!). This was the rockin pre-1980 period, and it they made good music. It wasn’t until Greg Rolie left the band and Jonathan Cain took over keyboards that they reached their peak in terms of albums sold… but during this period they transitioned into a prom band.

I was thinking about Journey for no good reason today, and thought I’d dredge up something old and different. Enjoy “Wheel In The Sky”, one of their earliest pop chart vehicles. I still think they had something here, though SP needed some pants that fit, a haircut, and some buttons on his shirt:

Tight harmonies and instrumentals were evident on “Feeling That Way”:

A little more energy is apparent on “Where Were You”, and Ross Valory decided to dress up as a banana. I don’t know why. Steve Perry once again could be mistaken as somebody’s girl singer from a distance, but sounded absolutely great wailing this song:

It’s a little bite of my childhood and leads me to remember my old friend Rick MacIntosh with his beater mustangs and his burning desire to *be* Ross Valory. Journey was the soundtrack of our friendship, and I guess I can’t be too harsh on their prom songs because of that.

I need to talk to the comcast people. I like triple play when it works. When it’s going well (afternoons and evenings, mostly) it is rockin’ fast and mostly wrinkle-free. Some special features like showing caller ID on the TV screen is cool when we’re all cuddled up and watching TV and not in the mood for telemarketing. The product is a pretty superior idea, but I’m worried that it’s not well-developed yet.

Triple-play really sucks in the morning. All three of my services (phone, internet, cable) are spotty and unreliable. It drops voice calls, pixelates cable video, and disconnects me from the internet. I don’t know if that’s part of some service window, or what. You would think that the hours from 8am to 10:30am would be times of unused bandwidth as most people are at their day jobs or on the streets. Kids are in school, so there is minimal cartoon network or disney channel. I’m lucky enough to be home most days, and work via VPN. I would think that the morning would be great, and service would degrade as the kiddies return home from school and the parents get back from work. The opposite seems to be true.

Maybe a busy system is a happy system?

I have to talk to comcast and see what’s up, but the problem is certainly interesting. Where do the lag, delay, and dropping come from?

These guitars are really starting to grow on me. I have another guitar that I’d rather have for about 2.5x the cost, but I could see owning a goldtop P90 guitar. This is one I would consider. Maybe the brand name appeals to me a bit, too.

Yesterday I heard a friend say that he disliked evangelical religions including evangelical athiests. It struck me as an odd grammatical error.

Evangelical doesn’t mean “using in-your-face recruiting techniques” nor does it mean “incessantly proselyting”, as any real evangelical should understand quite well. Are you interested in knowing the real meaning?

The root of the word is evangel, which refers to the Christian gospel books (the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The four primary gospel-tellers were referred to as the evangelists. The word “gospel”, by the way, means “good news” or “good story”, not “bad news that you’re a sinner worthy of death and hell”. To be an evangelist would be to have strong familiarity with this story and to share the story. Therefore, your minister and sunday school teacher and VBS helpers should be “evangelists” of the true sense. All Christians should be familiar and able to share this story. In fact, one should look forward to the opportunities that present themselves. It is not hurtful that some seek to create the opportunity.

Sadly, some have sought to force the story where there is no opportunity given at all. They’ve looked hard for the most controversial way to force a watered-down, cruelly-given, hurtfully memorable version of the story on poor people trying to make the most of the lives they’ve built for themselves. Christians have substituted some worldly values (”maximal exposure, maximal impact”) for compassion and kindness and have run roughshod over the very people they have wanted to reach. In my experience, most people who are strongly against Christianity are that way because of roughshod Christians they’ve known. No wonder so much of the world hates us.

The word “evangelical” in popular usage outside of church realms is something entirely different. It refers to those who passionately, zealously proselytize strangers and friends alike. It refers to forceful and often unwanted indoctrination. It smells more like a brutal mass-marketing campaign than a gift from a friend. In that sense, there could be “evangelical Athiests”, “evangelical Microsoft users”, “evangelical Mac enthusiasts”, and the like. Yet the term is mis-applied since these have no relationship with the evangel itself.

We need some other word to step in for zealous proselytizers. I suggest “butthead.”

We need to distance evangelism from that whole tradition. My fear is that mean-spirited, harsh, unwanted proselytizing does little good and in fact vaccinates good people against the true gospel, that we are forgiven for our sins and restored to eternal fellowship with a God who wishes us to know him better. That we can lose the life we built for ourselves and its consequences, and take on a life He has built for us with its rewards.

Let’s go back and look at that evangel. The Christ was very kind, open, and honest in all his dealings with those who were in their sins and outside of the life He offered. His passionate anger burned against those who were in the established church, whose teachings and works drove out the very people He came to save. He took the opportunities that opened to him at the wells where he drew water, in the streets, at weddings and funerals. He spoke to the crowds who formed around Him, even those who came to accuse and embarrass Him. He spoke in their churches, but hung out in the houses of common everyday people. He never tried to shame sinners, but taught the righteous to have some shame for the way they treated others. He wasn’t anti-semetic as some suppose, but was Jewish himself. It wasn’t their race or creed he opposed, but they mess they’d made of it at the time. The news there is very good for the common person.

When the church refers to itself as “evangelical,” we are referring to the desire to associate ourselves with this story, live it out, and share it. It has nothing to do with hard-sell recruiting techniques.

Does the world need this gospel? I think it does. Does it need preachers and other evangelists? Yes, I think it does. Does it need to go beyond the confines of our Sunday congregation? Yes, I think it does. Should we take the gospel to every place where there are receptive listeners? Again, I think so. Should we force people to hear it? Opinions vary, but I think not. The message is bigger and greater than we are, and responding to the true opportunities we are given should keep us more busy than we ever thought possible.

Please visit my other blog if you are a pretty contented windows user. I am famously not, but I would like to know how you do it. I have to work in windows by day, and I would like to be happier in those 8+ hours. All comments that are remotely encouraging or useful are accepted. I will only delete “because you suck” comments, and only if they’re not also funny.

Maybe I have no sense of humor this morning, but I pretty much resent the idea that my death would be a blessing for my family, and that marrying me is the “frog”, waiting for the kiss of death to make my wife & children’s dreams come true. This isn’t the lottery, it is *dying*. Poor taste, Insurance company.

Read the Paul Graham blog about loving what you do, doing what you love, work, play, and growing up.

This guitar is a real beauty. I keep looking at p90 guitars, even though I’m intending to get an ESP LTD PB-401 with P-Rails pickups some day. Still, guitars like this one keep popping up at Rondo music and shaking my resolve.

I’m definitely sold on the idea of P90 pickups. I’m increasingly leaning toward a clean, black finish. Except that I keep being drawn in by deep red finishes. This black cherry looks amazing. I also am still lusting after a PRS Soapbar in red, and even the plankish PS-100. If the ESP LTD came in black cherry I would be totally hooked.

Now it’s a matter of waiting, setting priorities, etc. My pedalboard isn’t complete yet, so it may be next year by the time I get the PB-401. And that’s okay. I am in no hurry. I like having things to look forward to, gear-wise.

For now we have other issues to deal with as regards the sound at church. We’re getting rid of ground loops with hum-x units (by EbTech), and squaring away some issues with our drums. We are more able to deal with mix than before. We have better management of platform sound levels and spillover. We have more musicians and singers available from week to week. Yet we still have to deal with levels, rotations of people, and some noisy lights that seems to bleed into the amps even when there is ground loop protection. There are more problems behind us than remaining, so there’s no discouragement, but I don’t need new gear to fill my time.

That’s without talking about work, medical stuff, and the VBS my wife is heading up.

Gear can wait. But these red P90 guitars are certainly worth the wait. Gorgeous, with rich gutsy sound. They just ooze appeal.