Skype Me

I just hooked up to Skype. If you can figure it out, feel free to Skype Me. My username is typical with the other contact info you have.

Happy Birthday Mandy!

Mood: celebratory
Listening to: audio message (see below)

Today is my baby sister's birthday. I recorded this audio message for her to hear - feel free to listen, too:


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JIMM 55 - Somebody Wake Up, Learn to Fly, and Be Flexible

I just realized that I'd forgotten to post the link to last week's music show over here. DOH!

On that show Jennie and I talked about some stuff, and we were unexpectedly joined by Keisha, who had just awoke.

The title comes from the 4 music tracks that I played. Head on over to the podcast page for more details. A lot of fun - yes.

This Week's Show - Alternative or Funk?

Mood: hungry and tired
Listening to: KCRW's Martini Shot
Reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) (reading "The Madness of Mr. Crouch")
Eating: no breakfast yet

I am wavering between doing a music show this weekend with only Alternative music or only Funk music. I have a lot of both I could play. On one hand, I've been wanting to play this sweet collection of funk music I've had for months now. On the other, there's some really nice alternative music that I'd love to play just to help promote the artists.

I may decide to do the alternative music this weekend and keep back the funk for a Super Funk Mix show next week.

I'm still not fully convinced which way to go. Any thoughts?

21 Year Old Swimming Memories

Mood:sleepy
Listening to: the window fan in the living room
Reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) (just finished "The Second Task")
Eating: haven't had breakfast yet
Watching: the sunshine, and it's only 7:37 in the morning!

We have a pool in our apartment complex, and we're using it this summer. Last summer we didn't use it that much. I think this summer it's becoming the default activity.

When I was 12-15 years old, my sister Stephanie and I would spend summers with our Mom in Texas. That meant that we'd spend a lot of time at the pool. Almost every day. It was great.

There were diving boards in the deep end, and at least once every two hours, we'd ask the lifeguard on duty to "close the boards" so that we could swim in the deep end.

One of my favorite activities was to toss a quarter somewhere and then go find it, even at the bottom of the deep end. I got pretty good at holding my breath underwater, and I also became used to swimming with 9 feet of water on top of me. I felt like a fish. It was fun.

Another thing I'd like to do was create the biggest splash that I could. In fact, I and my friends would take turns doing cannonballs, can openers, and preacher seats to try to get the biggest splash.

I also remember the music of 1985. There was always music from the radio. That year Paul Hardcastle's song "19" was very popular.

Has it really been 21 years?

God Enables Us to Serve Him Without Fear

Consider the following passage:

Luke 1:73-75 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
NIV at IBS International Bible Society NIV at Zondervan Zondervan


73the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

It is through Jesus he has done this. What God has done through Jesus is what enables all of us to serve him without fear. Jesus intercedes for us and has brought reconciliation.

Amen.

side note: I'd been holding onto an index card with this information on it for about 2 months.

Obsession

I will not check the number of spam messages in my GMail.
I will not check the number of spam messages in my GMail.
I will not check the number of spam messages in my GMail.
I will not check the number of spam messages in my GMail.
I will not check the number of spam messages in my GMail.
I will not check the number of spam messages in my GMail.

I'm going to try to wait until tomorrow to clean out my spam folder. Chances are it will be close to 100 by that time. I'm going to try not to let that bother me. It can wait.

I'm trying to convince myself of that.

Extreme Rock, Paper, Scissors!

Imagine RPS with 25 symbols. Mind boggling. It could be fun - now with only 4% chance of a tie.

RPS - 25

via Dave's House.

JIMM 54 - Keisha's Newborn Bear

Head over to hear Keisha bring a new teddy bear into the world. It's sappy, I know, but she's almost 9 years old and spent her own money getting it.

Also, remember to send in your Odeo in which you ask me any question. You know you have one on your mind, so ask me that question. I'll include it on a future podcast, provided that it's worksafe and familysafe. I'll wait while you go ahead and do it now.

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Okay, I'll go ahead and post this in the meantime. Peace!

If you could ask me one question...

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Text of audio:

Hey there, gentle readers! There is this functionality that I've known about for some time and have implemented it on the podcast but haven't done much to promote it here. The folks at Odeo have provided a way for people to send audio messages to each other, if you have a microphone connected to your computer.

So I'd like to open it up to all the readers. If you could ask me one question, what would it be? I'd like to have you use the Odeo system to ask it. Alternatively you can call the Listener Hotline at (206) 666-JIMM (5466) and leave it there. With the Odeo system, the quality is better, so that's why I mentioned it first.

I'd like to respond to your audio questions on a future podcast - oh what the heck - we could make this an ongoing thing. I may also decide to post the audio, and answer them in a future blog post.

So have fun, ask me any question. You can even be a little wacky. Just keep in mind that, in order for me to play it on the podcast, it has to be worksafe and kidsafe. With that in mind, have at it, people! :D

Father's Day 2006 Recap

Keisha gave me two home-made cards yesterday, and I'd like to describe them here.

BLUE CARD
One of them was something she'd worked on during the last week of school. It's made out of blue construction paper. Folded in half, the front reads in her own cursive handwriting:

Happy Father's day
-------------------
From Keisha
To: Dad

Opening up the inside, I see some pictures drawn in pencil. I had Keisha describe what's going on. The picture is a man wearing a tie, saying "You won! Good job"

Look to the right and see Keisha and Jennie - as drawn by Keisha - on either side of a "prize stand" - that's what's written in the block, and on top of it is a #1 Dad cup that she'd made out of yellow construction paper and glued onto the card. So I've receieved a #1 Dad award.

Turning the card over to see the back, it has, in Keisha's cursive handwriting:

Congratulation
Dad

And she drew some stars and lines around the words with a blue marker.

ORANGE CARD
Keisha also gave me an orange card, which she was finishing just before we left for church yesterday morning.

I open it up on the inside, and it reads:

Happy father's doy!

Dear Dad,

I Love you! Dad.
you are wonderful. 06-16-06


mom and me was tring to get
you two pesents but I try to
get you a tie and mommy tryyed
to get you Kiss music we couldn't
find it but after Church
we are getting your pesents. that's
Exsiding isns't it?
Love,
Keisha (written in cursive)

Then some more pictures:

A bottle of "Hot Sause"
A small Keisha and a small Daddy with hearts around and a circle drawn around them
the sign for "I Love You" made by two hands with a heart in between them
words written in cursive: "Love ya"
A bottle of beer (what Keisha said) with the numbers "125" on it with a price tag hung on the cap that says "125"
And a picture Keisha drew of herself underneath where she signed her name above

CELEBRATING
Keisha and Jennie took me to Buffalo Wild Wings for Father's Day lunch. I had 6 Blazin' wings, 6 Spicy Garlic, and some nachos. A 22 oz Miller Lite and a glass of water. We hadn't done something like this in about 2 months, but Jennie said we had it in our budget to do this.

Since she'd worked Saturday night, I told her that I would be more encouraged if she got some sleep, instead of driving around to get me the "pesents" Keisha mentioned in her card. I told her that maybe they could do that next week when she had the weekend off. She thought it was thoughtful that I was more concerned with her well-being than any presents.

CALLING MY DAD
I called my Dad last night. I haven't seen him face to face in about 3 or 4 years, nor talked to him in about 5 or 6 months. It's funny that we moved a lot closer to him and even have a local number, but we're not any closer in our relationship.

I got his answering machine and left him a message to wish him Happy Father's Day. I also said I hoped everything was alright, not having heard from him in so long. I also said I hoped the phone connection was okay, since I've never gotten a phone call from him. I told him I missed him and then hung up.

Maybe it didn't come across as a very encouraging message, but I honestly feel a little hurt that I'm not close to my father. We don't even really have a relationship right now. My mom, who lives thousands of miles away, is much closer to me than my dad, who lives only about 20-30 minutes away.

I would love more than anything to clear the air - to vent all of our hurts, irritations, anger to one another - just so that we can start over brand-new. It takes two people to have a relationship, and I hope that can happen.

I need to pray about it more - there's only so much that I can do on my own.

JIMM 53 - Double Shots

Mood: tired with a slight headache
Reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4)
Eating: everything bagel with cream cheese
Watching: Dead Zone: The Complete Fifth Season - season premiere

I posted the latest podcast episode yesterday. Check out JIMM 53 - Double Shots.

Animator vs Animation

I had inadvertently posted this to the podcast page first, and I saw that it had been downloaded via my Juice aggregator via the feed which I've subscribed to myself. So I wound up have a local copy of this on my PC accidentally. Oh well.

Heard about this on Diggnation.

17632.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

Happy Birthday, Stephanie!

Today is my sister Stephanie's birthday. I'm not going to mention how old she is except to say that she's two years younger than I.

I recorded this message to send her, and it includes an excerpt from Dr. Seuss's "Happy Birthday to You!" You can listen here after the jump:


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Sign Language Classes Coming

Mood: charged
Listening to: Salient - "Immortalize Me"

Jennie, Keisha, and I have a great opportunity to take some sign language classes this summer starting tomorrow night. This conflicts with some meetings we have with folks from church, unfortunately.

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail I just sent to fellow members of our family group:

Hey there, brothers and sisters! I hope you're doing well.

I apologize in advance for the length and personal nature of this e-mail, but I hope you'll understand by the time you've finished reading it.

As you may know, our daughter Keisha is hard of hearing, something we've known for over 6 years. Communication breakdowns are so common, and Keisha, even though she has an interpreter at school, isn't able to understand what's being said because her sign language knowledge is so limited.

We met with a deaf therapist last Saturday and talked about the frustration we've all felt from the communication hardships we've experienced. She said that the single-most important thing we could do to relieve this frustration is for all three of us to get some sign language training as soon as possible.

We are fortunate to have been contacted by the Cincinnati arm of Deaf Initiatives, and they are having free sign language classes throughout the summer. Unfortunately, the classes coincide with our midweek meetings on Wednesdays at 7 PM. The first class is tomorrow night, 6/14/06.

At this time Jennie and I both feel that the communication needs of our family outweigh our attendance at Wednesday family group meetings. I struggle writing this, because we all thoroughly enjoyed being with you guys. We want to participate in the family group, but we're going to have to do so, at least for the next few months, outside of the Wednesday meetings.

To that end, we would love to receive via e-mail the lesson notes and any other correspondence - especially via phone and in person. :D

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments. And please pray for God to use this time to enable us to superbless others, too.

Within 7 minutes, I got this reply from J., one of the family group members:

I believe that you are absolutely doing the right thing. Who knows who might meet and inspire as well? We will pray that this is a great time for you all as a family as well. I have been fortunate to be able to schedule most of Anna’s appts away from Wed, but things do come up from time to time.

I'll share more here or in another post later on.

When the Earth farts...

... you'd better get out of the way. I hate to belittle something as awesome as a volcanic eruption that way, but I just came up with the thought as I was chatting with my Mom.

Make the Connection

Another one of my coworkers sent out this e-mail last month, which was the first time she'd communicated with everyone about her experience with cervical cancer:

As most of you know I was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer in January of this year. We fortunately caught the cancer early and I only had to have a Radical Hysterectomy and now have to go to the doctor for check ups every 3 months for the next 5 years.

I was one of the unlucky few (10% of all cervical cancer) that is not directly linked to HPV. My cancer would never have been caught by my regular PAP checks. I heard of the website and I wanted to forward to everyone.

This is very personal for me, since my diagnosis I have learned SO much, and feel like it is my responsibility to all of you to inform you of this type of PREVENTABLE CANCER (in most cases, mine was not preventable). Please visit the website and if you have questions or want to talk I am always available.

Thanks And Have A Great Day!!!!

J.

JIMM 51 - Super Chill Mix

Mood: almost ready for bed
Listening to: the fan in our window
Reading: probably more of the KISS bio
Eating: we had lasagna, breaded chicken patty, and salad for dinner
Watching: nothing - cable got turned off

I forgot to mention earlier that this week's podcast is up! Super Chill Mix: another long mix of music, this time from the chillout/trip-hop/downtempo genre. I've heard a lot of it from my favorite music podcast, Dave's Lounge. Another good one I've been listening to lately is the Chillcast with Anji Bee. If you like the style of music you hear on this week's show, you'll probably enjoy listening to both of these shows.

Surrogate Parents

Mood: pretty good
Listening to: INFECTION - Episode 14
Eating: lunch soon - microwave pot pie, yogurt, and diet soda

I just found out that a coworker's close friend is her and her husband's gestational mother. She and her husband have a fertilized egg growing inside her friend.

This was something that they had talked about when my coworker got engaged. Something they also had talked about when they were in high school together. Now they just found out that her friend is pregnant with their baby, which is due next February.

I find this interesting and am blown away by this friendship and commitment. Especially since the gestational mother is married and has a son of her own.

18 Years Ago

Mood: sleepy
Listening to: Keisha singing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin
Eating: hot dogs and something else to be determined
Watching: Walk the Line

I've just been informed that 18 years ago today was when I graduated from high school. Wow.

Taller!

Mood: waking up
Listening to: Dance cable station on Music Choice
Eating: need breakfast
Watching: rain coming down outside

Keisha made herself some waffles for breakfast. She called out that she needed help getting the peanut butter and syrup. When I opened the cupboard door, she reached up and pulled it out! She's never been able to do that before without standing on a step stool or chair!

I called out for Jennie, and Keisha showed her what she could do. She currently stands up to Jennie's chin and to my neck. Who said this kid can grow up?? *wink*

Happy Blog Birthday to the Official Goof

Karen, the Official Goof of Journey Inside My Mind, has been blogging for 5 years. It's funny how you start doing something like this, and before you know it, you've reached these milestones: one month, half a year, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, and now 5 years!

What is cool about this is that somewhere she has all that history she can check out. In the meantime, she's got this little video posted:Five

Beware of Slides, Cochlear Implant Wearers

Static electricity from going down playground slides can shut down cochlear implants. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

Read more at the Wired article.

The World is Going to Hell

Maybe it's because of the date today. I dunno, but I really feel like I need to get this off my chest. It may or may not sound coherent or really be what I'm trying to say.

Our life experiences touch other people's life experiences. Start with you and think about all the people you could possibly interact with during a single week. That's a lot of people. Every person's life touches so many others' lives as well. And their lives touch ours.

In any given day, there is so much news, good and bad, that is reported. Mostly bad because in the media, the general opinion is that "if it bleeds it leads".

Consider this:

• Sunday morning I found out from the sound guy at church that he didn't get home from a trip in Kentucky until really late because there was a bad accident on I-71.
• Yesterday during lunch I found out from a coworker that it was his stepdad who was killed in that same accident.
• Another coworker was out yesterday for a funeral and has another viewing to attend later this week. She mentioned a few minutes ago that her sister-in-law was raped on the way home from work, and that it was mentioned on the news.

These events have not happened to me personally, yet they can affect me because they've touched people whose lives I also touch. I don't want this bad news to negatively affect my mood, yet I want to show compassion and empathy. I have to be careful.

I've realized that it's not healthy for us humans to dump all of our negative feelings and emotions on other people so much. We can't handle it, and we might find ourselves being brought down in the process, too.

I think we should really be going to God more often in these cases. You see it when you read the Psalms. I believe that God is so much more able to handle the negative emotions and situations better than any human being can.

Death is inevitable for all of us. We will experience pain and hardship. We will hurt each other and ourselves. We will have disappointments and we will grieve over all of our losses. We will have lots and lots of suffering and tragedy.

That is why we cannot hope for what this world has to offer us. We must put our hope in God and in his Son Jesus Christ. The hope we have as Christians, as true followers of Jesus, is that in heaven all of the nasty things about this life will not be there. It will all be replaced by something that is greater than we can even imagine.

Discuss.

VSP: Very Special Post 2006

Because I can, I'm having this Very Special Post written at 06/06/06 at 06:06.

I did something this last year, too.

JIMM 50 - Acoustically Emotional

Mood: sleepy
Listening to: The Parent Trap, on the Disney Channel
Eating: nothing yet - just woke up
Watching: the day pass me by quicker than I expected

I got started late recording the latest podcast and wound up getting to bed really late. I've only been awake for less than an hour!

I've done 50 of these podcast things! Wow. This one features a lot of acoustic music, and I get a little emotional; not so much about it being the 50th episode as something else.

Head ove and enjoy!