Month: March 2010

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God Life Music

My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics

I’m falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I’ve held on to
I’m standing here until You make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with You
I’m living for the only thing I know
I’m running and not quite sure where to go
And I don’t know what I’m diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with You

When you choose to follow, believe, trust, and love Jesus Christ above every one and every thing you choose to throw pride into the enemy’s darkness and emphatically exclaim that you can no longer go on and be a slave to this world. You can no longer say and do what the world’s agenda tells you so. You choose to die to the world, and let death bring Life to yourself. It’s a new Life, for you are reborn. Death brings Life – just like it did on that cross. Jesus Christ conquered death and created Life from it. He can take the dead man out of you and make you anew. If you believe. If you trust. If you hang by a moment with Him. It’s in the lyrics. It’s in the Truth:

Romans 6:4-5 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
4  For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new Lives.
5  Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also be raised to Life as He was.

John 12:24-26
24  I tell you the Truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels — a plentiful harvest of new Lives.
25  Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.
26  Anyone who wants to be My disciple must follow Me, because My servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves Me.

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Animals Astronomy Career Driving God Nature Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

A fresh new week of blogging begins – right here – right now !

I.  Year-Long Standard Time – If we stayed on Standard Time all year long and eliminated Daylight Saving Time from March through November then life would be so much more simple – and timely. Here in America’s Riviera in the middle of June when our days are at their longest and our nights are at their shortest we would have a sunrise of exactly 5:30 AM on Standard Time. That means that daylight would begin showing its presence shortly before 5 AM !  All the way up the Atlantic coast in Portland Maine the sunrise would actually occur just before 4 AM with daylight appearing before 3:30 AM !  While farmers everywhere would absolutely dig such an early sunrise in June most Americans would simply not appreciate it. So the next time that you scoff at losing an hour of sleep on that one weekend in March when you have to ‘spring forward’ just remember what life would be like without it. You would be up at the crack of dawn – the crack of 5 AM in June !  Next week I will explain to you what life would be like in December for most of us if we stayed on Daylight Saving Time all year long, but right now it is time to move on to my next thought …

II.  Public Speaking 101 – Tonight at my weekly Toastmasters club meeting I’ll be giving my 2ND major speech since I joined just a little over 4 months ago. This is what it is all about. It will be a 5 to 7½-minute speech mostly comprised of a subject matter that I knew little to nothing about just 5 weeks ago. I’ll be standing up in front of my new friends and speaking directly to them with minimal usage of notes. Much of my speech will be based on actual experience rather than written material. In fact my notes are essentially one giant outline rather than an actual speech. It does include a few supporting facts and figures that I’ll be referencing during my speech. I’m also on the active hosting rotation at Life Pointe Church on Sunday mornings. I lead Communion, I pray, and I speak to my brothers and sisters from the big stage armed only with a wireless microphone and my notes. Who would have guessed that this would ever happen in my Life ?  That I would be standing up on a stage at a church in a movie theatre on a Sunday morning ?  I’m also facilitating and leading formal information briefings at work on most Thursday mornings. Who would have guessed that I would be involved in all of this public speaking at an organized club – at church – and in my career. All of this is brand new as of the past half a year or so. Each public speaking opportunity has found a way to complement and enhance one another, and I am so amazed at the progress that I have made in this once dormant area of my Life. Once upon a time I was the most timid dude I knew. Public speaking was just never going to happen – no matter what. It was just totally impossible to occur. But then something miraculous happened some 43 months ago. God saved me. He took the dead man out of me. He said “Follow me.” I did.

III.  The 400-Mile Road-Trip – I’m still 3 days away from my next road-trip over to the Naples area, yet I’m already planning my next big road-trip for the final weekend of April. I’ve got a 400-mile (at least) road-trip planned that will take me up to Lion County Safari in Palm Beach County. After a fun-filled day at the park with the animals big and small I’ll be following the old historic U.S. Highway 98 over to the eastern shores of Lake Okeechobee. Around the Big Lake ‘O’ I go until I reach the coast-to-coast ‘7-0’. That’s Florida State Road 70 near the city of Okeechobee. I’m taking it all the way to Fort Pierce where I’m spending the night at a hotel. The next day it will be a nice scenic Springtime drive from the Atlantic shores of Fort Pierce Beach down to Palm Beach County solely along Florida State Road A1A and U.S. 1. It’s a huge chunk of southeast Florida that I’ve never seen before, and I’m so looking forward to discovering what’s there for me in my quest to find my ultimate vacation and retirement destination.

Those are my Thoughts on this Tuesday night. I thank you for your time, and I hope that you continue to spend a little bit of your valuable time each day supporting this blog and living Life with me.

Until we blog again (tomorrow) … REMEMBER THIS !

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Blogging History Life Music News People Politics Radio Television

Saturday Night Retro

During the Summer of 1987 United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was reelected for a 3RD term in a landslide majority, U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan urged Soviet Union Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall’ (in Berlin West Germany), Earth’s population reached 5 billion people, over 30 million people watched “The Cosby Show” every Thursday night on NBC-TV, Guns N’ Roses released their debut album “Appetite For Destruction”, and 20-year-old A1C Chris M. Day was loving the London England nightlife with friends and seeing lots of pop concerts featuring Duran Duran, Genesis, and Madonna.

On the radio young Australian pop-rockers Pseudo Echo enjoyed the limelight with their biggest International smash ever. It’s their Summer of 1987 remake of the Summer of 1980 Lipps Inc. Disco smash “Funkytown” which was featured last night on the ‘Disco Party’.

This concludes another week of blogging for me. Sundays and Mondays are my days off on here, but the tweets just keep on coming. You can follow me on Twitter at majorhitwaves. I’ll be back LIVE on Tuesday night with another edition of my ‘Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. Have a great weekend everyone !

Categories
History Life Music Nature Radio Sports Travel

The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

In June of 1980 I became a teenager – 13-years-old. I successfully completed the 7TH grade at Robert Goddard Junior High School in Lanham Maryland, and I was also actively involved in the Boy Scouts. We used to go on regular hiking and camping trips up in the mountains along the Appalachian Trail in Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. I remember hiking through the small town of Harpers Ferry West Virginia on many occasions. It was one of the few portions of the trail that actually went right through the heart of a town. Although I don’t miss the hiking with heavy backpacks and rugged shoes I do miss the scenery. While we have a nice subtropical landscape here in America’s Riviera nothing can beat the beautiful views that I remember from high atop the A.T.

On the radio during that memorable time of my life was this funky jam. It’s often referred to as ‘Disco’s Last Dance’, as it wasn’t even released here in the States until January of 1980 – some six months after Disco allegedly died at a Chicago White Sox baseball game. It took another 5 months after that to reach # 1 on the U.S. pop chart where it stayed for the entire month of June of 1980.

Here’s Lipps Inc. with their unexpected and untimely # 1 Disco smash – a year after Disco died. Welcome to “Funkytown”. Population – You !