Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio Television

My Top 10 Hits – Week 269

Every Monday I post my all-new Top 10 Christian hit music chart based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from the previous week. It’s the continuation of a weekly hobby that goes back 40+ years. Here’s this week’s chart:

#TOP10MONDAY WEEK ENDING – SUNDAY APRIL 10TH 2022 WEEK 269
TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 11 Brighter Days
[5TH week @ # 1]
Blessing Offor
2 2 11 See Me Through It Brandon Heath
3 3 11 Holy Spirit Come Patrick Mayberry
4 4 3 Wonder Working All Creatures
5 5 3 Fill My Cup Andrew Ripp
6 6 9 Sunday Sermons Anne Wilson
7 7 22 Weary Traveler Jordan St. Cyr
8 9 4 Fake It Tauren Wells
9 1 Desesperado Evan Craft
10 10 5 Egypt Cory Asbury

# 1 This Week In:
2021 – “Good God Almighty” – Crowder
2020 – “Almost Home” – MercyMe
2019 – “Confidence” – Sanctus Real
2018 – “Freedom Hymn” – Austin French
2017 – “I Have This Hope” – Tenth Avenue North

LAST WEEK – So you missed last week’s edition ? No you didn’t. It wasn’t published. But it was updated, and there were big chart moves with 8 out of 10 hits moving up or down and just 2 non-movers. This week there are 8 non-movers, as my chart takes a breather after last week’s hyperactivity.

BRANDON HEATH – It was good to see Brandon perform “See Me Through It” LIVE on the Huckabee stage a couple of Saturday nights ago. The song sounded great with Tre’ Corley and The Music City Connection joining Brandon along with Mike Huckabee on bass. Not too many shows on TV will give Christian artists a chance to perform their latest or classic hits, but Huckabee is an exception to that rule. It’s also a solid weekly talk show that informs and entertains. You can catch it on TBN every Saturday night at 8 PM ET with an encore every Sunday night at 9 PM ET.

This blog is # 36 worldwide on the Top 80 Christian Music Blogs and Websites chart. Thank You for including us Feedspot !

This concludes another weekend of blog posts. I’ll do it again this upcoming weekend – with 5 new entries on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday. I don’t blog on Saturdays. That’s my day of rest.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. I’m also on Twitter and Flickr.

Be blessed my friends !  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Food Movies Sports Television Travel Wrestling

My Wild Wrestling Weekend Vacation 2022

And I am back from yet another vacation – this one a 6-day trip out west. I flew in to the Dallas Texas area early last Thursday morning (March 31ST). First stop after my brother picked me up at the airport (DFW) was a restaurant nearby that the locals love – Old West Cafe. I enjoyed a hearty breakfast during my first hour within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and it continued a new tradition for me and my brother. This was our first stop the last time I flew in to DFW (in November 2020), and it worked out so well that we’ve decided to do it every time I fly in to DFW.

Here’s me a few seconds before diving in to this culinary masterpiece:

We saw a movie that afternoon – The Lost City (starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe – among others). I enjoyed it. A solid ‘B’. 3.5 out of 4 stars from me. It was my 3RD movie seen at the theatres so far in 2022, and that ties both 2020 and 2021. (By comparison my 2000 to 2009 average was 20 movies per year, and my 2010 to 2019 average was 30 movies per year.)

That night we went to WrestleCon in downtown Dallas at a large hotel with a convention center. You may have heard of ComicCon held in various cities each year around the U.S. (and probably the world.) Well this is the professional wrestling version of that. Picture a lot of vendor booths with well-known wrestlers behind many of them selling photographs, autographs, and selfies or pictures of you and the wrestler. These are real-life TV stars of the wrestling realm – past and present – of rival companies – sitting or standing right in front of you in living color. Just you and them meeting and greeting each other. It was quite the experience. I was a bit starstruck. My brother talked to a few of his favorites, and he bought their photo and signature, and I took a picture of them with my brother’s smart phone.

Also part of the convention was a show at the wrestling ring with a full card of matches. We had front row seats ringside for that first night’s show. These are mostly independent wrestlers. I’m a huge WWE fan (more on that later), but beyond that I’m not really in to the independent wrestling scene (or other promotions stateside and worldwide). I know of some of them because they used to work for the WWE. I was very impressed with this first night’s experience.

Night 2 (Friday), and we were in Garland Texas (a Dallas suburb) at the Curtis Culwell Center – a nearly 7,000-seat arena. We were there for the reboot of Ring Of Honor and their annual Supercard Of Honor pay-per-view event. It was a stacked card with a dozen matches that thrilled the more than 2,000 in attendance. (We had ringside seats again.)

Nights 3 and 4, and we were at WrestleMania 38 at AT&T Stadium (where the Dallas Cowboys play). This was my 21ST WrestleMania (since WrestleMania X8 in 2002), but it was my very first LIVE and in-person. It was a bucket list event for me and my brother, and we finally did it. We were there for 8 hours on Saturday night and 6 hours on Sunday night. (The show itself was 4 hours on each night.)

If you have followed me online for a while then you know that I am a huge WWE fan. (I even preached a sermon about it here on my blog.) My brother got me hooked in June 2001 at a Raw and Smackdown in Tampa and Orlando respectively. Before those two LIVE events I had never seen an episode of either show. Since then I don’t think that I’ve missed one. I became a sudden and instant fan at those two shows at the atypical age of 34. (I never watched it as a kid either.)

Me and my brother watched the post-WrestleMania edition of Monday Night Raw at his house, and then I flew back home the next morning. My wild wrestling weekend vacation was complete.

A couple hundred million dollars were pumped-in to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex economy last weekend due to professional wrestling and its loyal fanbase worldwide, and I was part of all of that.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
1990s Blogging Football Movies Music Radio Sports Television

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1992

Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).

It’s the 3RD Friday of the month, so I go back 30 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday January 19TH 1992:

  1. “Black Or White” – Michael Jackson
  2. “Can’t Let Go” – Mariah Carey
  3. “He Don’t Know” – Huey Lewis And The News
  4. “Kiss Them For Me” – Siouxsie And The Banshees
  5. “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” – George Michael & Elton John

“Kiss Them For Me” – What a great song that is. I consider it to be one of the greatest songs of all-time. It’s definitely the song that I’ve performed (sang) on “Rock Band” more than any other. It’s my signature song. It was quirky 30 years ago, and it’s just as quirky today. It was produced by Stephen Hague who is the man behind some of my other greatest songs of all-time from Erasure, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, and Pet Shop Boys.

At the box office later in January 1992 I saw “Kuffs” starring Christian Slater. Anyone remember that ? No ? I didn’t think so.

I do remember this though – my Washington Redskins won Super Bowl XXVI 37-24 over the Buffalo Bills 30 years ago this month.

Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 35 years ago to January 1987.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Driving Food Holidays Television Travel Weather

My November Vacation 2021 Road-Trip

#TravelThursday continues now with Part 6 of my 7-part blog series on my recent 18-day road-trip between South Florida and North Texas.

Last week I left-off at the end of Day 16 at my hotel destination on the west side of Hattiesburg right around sunset that night. It was my 2ND stay at that particular hotel, and it was a good night’s stay. Back in November I wrote all about Hattiesburg Mississippi here on #TravelThursday. On a future road-trip I need to spend a couple of days there exploring the local area rather than just a hotel night.

Early the next morning – Saturday November 27TH 2021 – I departed at dawn with freezing cold temperatures and a heavy layer of frost on my car windows. Temperatures dropped to as low as 30°F / -1°C during the first hour of my drive southeastward along historic U.S. 98. I drove through Semmes and Mobile Alabama right around 8 AM, and on the east side of Mobile (after another scenic drive along Battleship Parkway) I picked-up I-10 eastward.

Post-Thanksgiving holiday traffic on I-10 eastward was a madhouse. Once again it was quite scary driving through Pensacola. It didn’t really get much better after that. I don’t think I’ve seen and experienced I-10 as busy as it was on that Saturday.

I eventually had enough of the extreme anxiety, and I got off I-10 about 95 miles earlier than originally planned – at U.S. 231 – which leads southward into Panama City. I’m very familiar with this road, as one of my longtime friends has lived a couple of miles off the road for the past 20+ years. After a fuel pitstop at Love’s (my new favorite gas station / travel stop on the road) I took a series of backroads across the Florida Panhandle (south of Tallahassee) and into the “Big Bend” area of the Florida peninsula.

U.S. 98 is fun (translation – peaceful) to drive between Hattiesburg Mississippi and Mobile Alabama, and I especially love it along the “Big Bend” area of Florida south of Perry. I picked-up U.S. 98 in Wakulla County – which is another fascinating area of my state that I’ve spent very little time in (other than driving through). I’m a big fan of “Welcome To Plathville” on TLC, and on a recent Season 3 episode the family ventured down to Wakulla Springs State Park for some fun in the sun and sea. Now I want to visit !

I enjoyed a nice #LuDinner (late-Lunch / early-Dinner combined) at an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant in Chiefland – which incidentally I plan to eat at on every future visit through Chiefland. After my hearty meal I continued on for another hour to my hotel destination for the night in Crystal Springs (another town I’ve spent the night at previously). It’s located along U.S. 98 and Florida State Road 44, and where the two routes meet – it’s a very busy and congested intersection.

From the very cold low-30s up to the mild mid-60s – those were the temperatures during my drive back into my home state.

Just like Day 16 I drove another 523 miles on Day 17, so that’s 2,497 miles on this road-trip so far. And that’s where I’ll end Part 6 of this 7-part blog series. I’ll conclude with my road-trip adventures and experiences next #TravelThursday.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries