The Golden Voice

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past week, by now you've probably heard of Ted Williams. "The man with the golden voice". Ted was a homeless man, who had been panhandling for years. He has a talent that's very unique, and one that got him overnight international recognition. Here's Ted's full interview on the Today show. This video sums it up best:

 

The thing that instantly struck me about this guy was his humility. Even in the very first video that was shot by the Columbus Dispatch reporter, he was just so humble and gracious. He had a kindness in his eyes. Even how this guy just carries himself in these interviews, he's like a child. He has an innocence, and gentleness about him. I believe that this is the perfect work of God. 

This man's whole story, and his rise to fame overnight is just saturated with the Gospel. He is a flawed, sinful man with a checkered past, with bondage, and regrets, and he's put himself and his family through pain and misery, and STILL, he's received favor. That's how God works. God meets us where we are. Ted doesn't "deserve" anything he has received this past week. Teds actions didn't earn him anything. But, because of his submission to "A God of his own understanding", and the fact that God softened his heart enough to make him grateful for what he had, even as a poor person, God has seen it fit to rise him up. 

I think of 1 Peter 5:6 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time". There's no doubt that God has done a big work through this man. Ted might not even realize the implications of his whole rise to instant fame. The hope that God has given TONS of homeless people, and poor people who are battling addiction, and poverty. God's given those people a voice, and a direction. As well as inspiration to millions of people who are perfectly well off. If you've seen this story, and it's captured you in any way, don't tell me that you won't have different types of thoughts the next time you encounter a pan handler on the streets. Hopefully Ted's story will help soften some hearts. Maybe it won't. But I believe that Ted's story was, and is fabricated by a perfect God who knows exactly what he's doing. And I believe that he will see Ted through.

Beer, Glorious Beer!

I love beer. How wonderful this creation! When I say beer, I don't mean the watered down, pale, moose urine that college kids and rednecks drink. I mean good, wholesome, brewed to perfection BEER. The kind with flavor, and body. Not the kind you drink to get drunk. I'm talking about the fine beers. The kind you sip, and let dance in your mouth as you enjoy it slowly.

                                                                         credit

Knowing my passion for good quality beer, my brother-in-law gave me a beer brewing kit for Christmas. I've always flirted with the idea of brewing my own beer, but quite frankly, found the idea of it pretty intimidating. Brian (my bro in law) has brewed many batches of beer, as well as my Dad. So, I have some good success stories to go off of. So, I gave it a shot, and we'll see how it goes...

When brewing beer, there's a couple of things that are vital to making a successful batch. #1 is patience. Once you get the batch together, boil the sugar booster, mix the wort, add in the yeast, and top the barrel (total brewer lingo. hehe), it still takes about 2 weeks to ferment, and then once you bottle it, it takes another 2-3 weeks before it's ready to drink. Patience is key. #2 Constant temprature, and a dark place to store your brew where it will not be exposed to direct sunlight. I chose the top shelf of our coat closet. There's not even a light in there, and it's close to our bedroom. That area stays pretty dark almost all of the time. So, it should do nicely. I started the brew today, so I will bottle it 2 Sundays from today, and then decide what I'd like to do next!

My Pop and I are talking about brewing my next batch together. We want to get real creative and brew something kind of off the wall. Like, a brown ale, lots of flavor, but not as sweet as Newcastle. But not bitter either. Pop was telling me that when he used to brew, he experimented with ginger root, a some seasonings. At some point, I want to do a batch and incorporate a coffee flavor. This first batch I have now, is just a pale ale. It's a good starter. I'm definitely looking forward to giving it a try! I'll blog about the results. But for now, we wait....

My Wife, The Country Music Sensation...?

Did you know that my wife is a country music hit? Here's a short clip of her new hit single. Inspired by the Christmas hit, "Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer", here's Erin singing "My Wife Ran Off With The Marlboro Man". Instant classic!

Christmas at the Slays'!

Well, Merry Christmas a day late! My wife and I had such a wonderful day together yesterday, and I would love to share a little about it!

Can I first just say how blessed we are? Erin and I are so grateful that we are healthy (well, mostly in Erin's case), able to live in a wonderful place, work for a wonderful company, and have loving friends and family. We are grateful that the Lord has blessed and given so much to such selfish and undeserving people. It baffles me sometimes, and I am also grateful that the Lord's greatness is well beyond my human comprehension.

With that being said, Erin and I were blessed enough to give and receive some wonderful gifts for Christmas this year. We spent Christmas morning at home with just the two of us. It was lovely. We woke up at around 7am. I have to admit, I was more the antsy one. I wanted to open gifts right away, and Erin was the one who was like, "hey, make some coffee first, we have all morning". And she was right.

Here are some of the awesome gifts that I received: Erin got a killer deal on a laptop, which I showed you in my last post. LOVE this thing. It's totally awesome. She also got me 3 great t-shirts! I was totally in need of new t-shirts, because my old cool ones all had holes in them. I got a Goonies shirt, a Star Wars shirt, and a Green Eggs and Ham shirt. She also got me seasons 6,7, and 8 of Seinfeld. A new wallet because I was in desperate need of a new one. I've had the same wallet since high school, and it was literally falling apart. She got me some Nautica cologne. It smells really nice. And I also got some really fun stocking stuffers, like a balloon helicopter, a yo-yo, some candy, some cofee, and a slinky!

Also....

I have killer in-laws!! My parents-in-law got me the drill and bit set. Funny story: I opened the bit set first not knowing any better... And I was like... oh... cool... that's a nice set. Not knowing that the actual drill got mixed in to Erin's presents. HAHA. Needless to say, I was super grateful because I've been wanting one for a while!! And my bro in law Brian, and his fiance June got me the beer kit!! I think I'm going to tear into that puppy next weekend. It's gonna be aweome.

 One of the funniest gifts is what my Mom, Em, and Robbie got us. Pictured to your right is "The Night Before Christmas". Not exactly the "funniest" book ever written. BUT, the cool thing about this version is the recorded commentary from my Mom, sis and step-dad. It's a book that you can record your voice for each page! And we always used to read this book Christmas Eve before bedtime. Well, a couple of years ago, Em and I were both at Mom's on Christmas Eve, and let's just say that Mommy got her money's worth that night. We desecrated this book with our "humorous observations" of said story. So, basically Mom, and Em tried to re-create that, and send it as a Christmas gift. I nearly threw up from laughter. :)

I got Erin a Kindle for Christmas! She loves it, and she's hardly stopped reading it since. I also got her a whole bunch of other things which I'm sure she'll tell you about on her blog.

Needless to say, it was a fun Christmas! I loved just hanging with my wife on Christmas day. It was nice and chill.



The end. :)

New Blog Title, New Meaning

Well everyone (and by everyone, I mean all 6 of you), it's been over 6 months since my last post. What can I say? My last post was just so.... um.... deep... that I couldn't figure out anything to top it?? Or, I just got bored and busy, and didn't care to write anything else. Plus, I didn't really like blogging on my fiance'/wife's laptop... so, being that she's such a sweet, awesome chick, she hooked a husband up with THIS:

MERRY CHRISTMAS ME!!!!!!!!!!!! Wife totally hooked it up! So, I with the wonderful gift that I have now received, it should make it a little easier to blog and keep up with the world! I'm not gonna lie.... it's a pretty sexy laptop. :)

So, on a completely different note, you're probably wondering why I changed my blog name, and address. Well, there's a couple of reasons actually:

1 - ramlingsofarandomrambler was really long, and confusing, which is probably the main reason that not many people followed my blog. Heck, I forgot the name of it sometimes, and had to go look it up in my browser history.

2 - It was time for a change in general. I really wanted to give my blog a newer, more "grown up" look. So, naturally, when someone wants to make a change, the wise thing to do is solicit the help of an expert. I just so happen to be fortunate enough to live with a blogging legend/blog layout expert. Seriously, she's the bomb at blogs, so she helped me with the new look. And by help, I mean I told her a general idea of what I wanted, and she created the awesomeness that is now my new blog! Yay

 3 - final winter has meaning. My new blog name is a reference to my first real live rock band that I played in right out of high school. We were called final winter, and we were what you would refer to as a Christian rock band who thought we were going to change the world. But, we were all like 19/20 and sucked really bad. But we had TONS of fun. The name final winter signified an attitude that we wanted to project as a band, and people in general. Winter is symbolic of cold, dreary, dark, and in some parts gloomy. But winter also is the prequel to a new beginning. It's symbolic of a new life in Christ. As new believers, we are in a spring time, and we've lived our final cold/dreary winter. We are a new creation, like fresh buds on a tree. It's new, and fresh.

We had a good time. I played rock music with 2 of my best friends in the whole world Who wouldn't love that? We didn't care how off key we were, how loud we were... We just played music we loved in a cold garage in the middle of the woods. To this day, I still wish I could go back sometimes and just hang out in that time. But, that's all part of growing up. We all moved on, got married, and lead our own lives. Still best friends, just live far away from each other.

But, we'll always have the Roxy....

My Mind's Been Goin' Through Them Changes...

It's hard to classify, and categorize "regret" in my life. There's a lot of things that I feel like I should regret, but regret insinuates an emphasis on living in the past, and I believe we should be concerned with the present. And in the present, there is a LOT to be excited about.

But I can't help but think of some stupid mistakes that I made in the past. Things that I've done to inspire people to build up walls, and shut me out. Which makes my heart sad, simply because one of the mantras I "attempt" to live by, is to be a friendly, loving, peacemaker. But I tend to be subconsciously fickle, and often re-align my priorities, and leave people on the back burner, and I don't find out that I've created emotional wounds until it's too late.

Part of this is simply the fact that I'm miss understood, and I don't have an intentionally malicious bone in my body. Seldom, if ever do I do ANYTHING to someone out of spite. In fact, the idea of this behavior is sickening. But there are a handful of people (mostly women) who would disagree, and probably (if they were to be 100% honest with you), would have some very surprising and borderline terrifying things to say about yours truly. I think my intentions are always well, but they are poorly executed, and I've left people out in the cold, without meaning too, more than I care to acknowledge, or even think about.

Of these situations, 4 of them are real heart breakers. Ones that cut me deep, and situations that, if given the opportunity, I would go back and correct some specific actions to prevent the creation of the resentment pool that I'm now forced to wade in. No matter how things are, there's nothing I can do to go back and correct things. And the sick part about it is, that if I did, I probably wouldn't be in the position that I am now to marry the woman of my dreams. It's hard to admit that the casualties of these dying/dead relationships were the building blocks to the life, and relationship I am living in now. Without having to learn hard lessons at the expense of others' emotions, I wouldn't be as equipped to face the trials of my current relationship and future marriage.

And as much as I've attempted to mend, and even surgically operate on these 4 failed friendships/relationships, it seems that the simple truth is... things change. People make choices, and move on. Sometimes, what seem like life long friendships, and connections just wither and die. It's how we're created. Part of it is my selfish ambition, and misguidance, but I can also rest the other part of the blame on the hard hearts of those on the receiving end of my foolishness. After all, I cannot, nor will I take all of the blame. At some point, people have to CHOOSE to feel hurt, or choose to look past a situation, see through it, and forgive. Some people chose to forgive on the "surface", but harbor resentment, and hide emotions, and think that I don't pick up on it. I'm smarter than that. I can't always pin point the problem, but I can ALWAYS tell when there is one no matter what. So, I take the hint, and back off.

To those 4 people, (3 of which will most likely be reading this at some point), I apologize for taking advantage of you, and your fragile hearts. I can only take partial blame, but I will carry the burden. I'm sorry, and I appreciate all of you. With your your examples as help, I will not make the same mistakes again. The woman who I am marrying is prepared to take me for who I am, and see me grow, and nurture me through my shortcomings. And I will do the same for her. She sees me the way Christ sees me, and the way you should have. No more regret, no more wondering what would have been. In the most loving way, I say to you. "What was, or could have been is dead, and buried. Rest in peace".

A List Of Other Things That I Am Looking Forward To...

Besides the obvious stuff that surrounds getting married, I'm just really looking forward to a lot of positive, and fun changes that comes with moving, and having a wife, and being stable. Here's a list of some of those things I'm really anticipating:

- Not being a couch/air mattress surfer anymore: I've been blessed with amazing friends throughout this whole dating/engagement process who have been so gracious and generous to let me stay with them. There are great benefits to that, namely, they are not charging me rent so I can save for stuff, and since I just had a job change. But I can't wait to sleep on a real bed, in a bedroom with furniture, and a gorgeous wife beside me. That's a bit better than an air mattress, laundry baskets/suitcase on the floor, and a pillow to snuggle. :)

- Football season: Cowboys are making a solid run this year. Period. AND, since the Superbowl is in Dallas this year, we are all planing to tailgate as a family no matter who's playing, because honestly, why wouldn't you do that if you only lived 20 minutes away from the super bowl?

- Road trips, and camping trips: I am long overdue for a camping trip, and Erin and I are planing to go camping for a weekend once the weather cools off! I am thrilled about this. :) We are also planning to go to the balloon fiesta in New Mexico in October.

- Our first Thanksgiving and Christmas together: Yay, Erin won't be in China this year, so we'll be able to celebrate the Holidays together for the first time! We can decorate the tree together, and wake up on Christmas morning together, and see what Santa brought. And continue our tradition of monkey bread on Christmas morning. (We did that on fake Christmas morning last year).

- Having new things: I'm not a big materialistic guy. I've always been ok with hand-me-downs and used stuff, but it'll be nice to have good, new furniture, and have a "home". Erin's really good about wanting to make our place look nice, and feel homey. I am definitely looking forward to having a woman's touch in our place. My last place where I lived alone had 2 recliners, a small tv, a book shelf, small table, and nothing on the walls. Pathetic. :)

Those are the ones I can think of now! 45 more days. :)