Jeans, bowling, pizza, and Coke

Costco routinely carries Lucky jeans for $37. I'm not one of them stylish clothing people (just ask anyone I know!). At Christmas last year (when I landed a day before my bags did), I had to pick up some clothes so I could atleast like shower (yeah, I know, gross right, thanks Southwest!). Mom had to stop by Costco to pick up something, and my sis noticed the Lucky jeans. I ended up with a pair and the rest as they say is history. There really isn't anything special about them, they're just comfortable. Real comfortable. In the past I've worn Wranglers, Levis, whatever, I just really like the feel of them. I've heard they cost much more other places, so I guess I am.... Lucky.... to get such a great deal! (*groan*)

Not to mention, I got a slice of Costco combo pizza for lunch. :)

Lets see what am I up to? League bowling last night, and the Pin Wheels team all had a great night. Personally, I rolled a 155 and 172, both well above my average going into the evening of 139. I think it was the shoes!

I made a trip to the Whole Foods market. Veeerrry different. No, I'm not one of those organicky people, I'm just on the hunt for mexican Coke. Yes... mexican Coke. In places where you can find it, it's more expensive than regular US Coke, but worth it. It's a different taste than the Coke you're used to. I can't explain it. It's different. Why? Well it's made with pure cane sugar. Yes, the good stuff. I can't describe the difference in taste, I wouldn't call it sweeter, but maybe it is.

Anyway, I went to Whole Foods market, I heard a rumor that there was some there. They did have an off-brand cola that was made with sugar. I did get it, it tasted closer, but not quite the same. But I couldn't find the real stuff. I kept looking, and looking and looking, and no dice. Maybe they had it and were just out when I was there. I did find it online from some soda shop in SoCal. Get this, it's $30 for a case of 24 12-oz bottles (like the one on the left). Oh yeah, that and ground shipping brings it to $75. I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to pay over $3 for 12-oz of soda! Until I find it, the thirst continues....

Skip

He walked slightly hunched, and slowly. He carried a cane most of the time. Once, we left Safeway and when we got back to his house, the cane was still on top of his red 1986 Ford Thunderbird.

My great-grandpa Lonzo Alfred "Skip" McDowell was born today, 96 years ago. For those into cool numbers, his birthdate was 12/21/12. How neat is that! I knew him as grandpa McDowell, but everyone else called him Skip.

He loved to bowl, especially taking Stacie and I on Saturday mornings after we'd spent Friday night with him. Well never together, we'd kill each other. Kentwig Lanes was close. You remember the one. They had dollar games, cheap shoe rental.

He loved to come watch my baseball games. In fact I remember he passed right at the beginning of my 12-year-old season of Little League, in April of 1993.

He whistled. A lot. I could never tell what, it sounded almost Korean or something. I think he could carry a tune in a bucket, just not all that far. I used to sit by him in church and he'd sing. I remember a specific time when we sang "Holy, Holy, Holy" and I was next to him singing along.

My best friend growing up, Bryan, had an elementary school named after his grandpa. I thought it was neat, but Bryan never really got to know him very well. I felt sad for him. I counted my blessings that I got to spend so much time with my great-grandparents and grandparents. I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family this coming week!

Hello again

I haven't blogged in a while. I guess I really haven't had much to say. Things I think are good.

Let's see, bowling league is a blast. I'm improving, and one of these days I hope I can get back to respectability. Until then, I'm having fun and that's all that counts. I've been eyeing bowling ball bags, bowling balls, and shoes. I've seen shoes for $35-40, which I don't think is a bad price. Balls run anywhere from $40 to however much you want to pay. I've seen what look like decent (performance-wise) and good-looking balls for $60-70. New single-ball bags start at $20, and one I really liked was about $33. Sure, I guess I could spend $200 on new bowling stuff, but I really haven't done it much lately outside the league. We bowl 6 more times (12 games total) after the new year, if I went more and saved money (having my own shoes for example) maybe it'd be worth looking more into.

I'm in the market for a new phone. My phone works fine except for the battery. I basically have to charge it every night and hope it gets me to the next night. Instead of a $40-50 battery (which I'd really have to search online for), I could put that towards a new phone. Unfortunately, that would come with a shiny new 2-year renewal. And an extra $30/mo ($22/mo after my discount) in charges. I haven't decided there, I'll figure out what I'm doing after the holidays.

My car needs work too. It's well overdue for a good 100,000 checkup. And timing belt. And water pump. And transmission flush and fill. And... well who knows what else! A new phone will have to wait until I get my car done.

I've done little more with photography. I took my camera tonight to my friend Rachel's christmas program. She's an elementary school music teacher. She asked our singing group to provide some background vocals for a song, and I happened to take my camera along. I'm getting more comfortable shooting in sorta-manual mode. Oh wait, I think the S stands for shutter, not sorta.

Computer-wise, I've been playing with Windows 2008 Server Standard Edition. I've read reports of people who like it as a workstation OS. They're completely right. The Vista drivers work great with it, and you can enable themes that make it look more like Vista. Except it doesn't suck. It's speedy, responsive. I'm very impressed. If only I didn't have to reinstall everything every so often.

I'm looking forward to going home. I'll be out there for several days. I'm really hoping to get to go skiing. I haven't been in a few years, maybe winter of 06-07?

I need to get going on my Christmas shopping. I've got a list. Well in my head. Close enough?

Name that show

Yikes! It's been another month.

Woot! often has some funny posts. This one today was entitled 17 Fabulous Prequels To Broadway Musicals. Can you name all 17? I got 16, with a little cheating I'll get them all...

1. Kate, We Haven’t Been Introduced
2. Bar Mitzvah of La Mancha
3. Sand And Primer Your Wagon
4. A Chorus Dot
5. Fiddler Borrows A Ladder
6. Little Business Plan of Horrors
7. A Star's Mom Allows A Handsome Stranger To Buy Her A Drink
8. Indian Territory!
9. The Guy Who Is A Little Intense But Keeps To Himself And Isn’t Really Bothering Anyone Of The Opera
10. Annie There’s A Waiting Period
11. Kittens
12. Brand New Acquaintance Joey
13. Handshake Of The Spider Woman
14. Jesus Christ Waiter
15. Starlight Right-of-Way Allocation And Environmental Impact Study
16. Vocal Warm-ups On A Cloudy Day
17. West Side Backstory

Can you name them all?

Extra Hour

I'm spending that extra hour from daylight saving time by balancing my checkbook. Quicken, the humorous little thing that it is, believes that I have an upcoming payment to Starbucks.

Hmm.... Maybe it is right.

Lets see, to recap. I bought a digital piano. It sounds absolutely gorgeous. No, I don't mean my playing. But if someone who actually could play the piano well would play on it, it would be gorgeous. I pound out chords and have fun, so I guess that's all that matters. The sucker is heav-y! Solid wood top, weighted, pressure-sensitive keys, wooden slide-out key cover. I love it. And it's a great place to plop junk mail on. I'm debating buying a USB-to-MIDI adapter to plug into it. Then I'd have my own computer-controlled player-piano. How sweet is that!

While in the process of buying said digital piano, I dropped my phone, cracking the LCD. It still worked, but I could no longer read anything on the screen. So I had to use the slide-out keyboard to make calls. If I had your phone number memorized. Things got bad one night after church when I was trying to check my voicemail and curb jumped out at me.

To my rescue, my dad had the same exact model (which he stopped using, gave to my bro-in-law, and he stopped using) and so they mailed it off to me. I got it yesterday, and got it all set up. Very nice! Until I can afford a Blackberry Storm or HTC Touch Diamond (drool). But not after buying a digital piano (it's an *or* thing, not an *and* thing). But using my dad's old phone will tide me over several months until I can save up.

I haven't taken pictures in a while, I think I've missed the fall changing of the leaves. They were pretty cool lookin' this year tho.

Okay, back to balancing my checkbook. More to come!

Say Goodbye to Warm Weather

This might be our last 80 degree weekend for the year here in Kansas City, it makes me wish I was back there.

View my Disney Panama Canal Cruise picture gallery from last May.

New Singing Group

I was asked to join a new singing group several weeks ago, and I've really been dying to do some singing. It's left a pretty big void in my life for a long while.

We have Rachel and Brittany on soprano, Amy, Rebekah, and Tawnya as altos, Justin and I on tenor, and Barry as the lone bass. It would be good if we could add a baritone and a bass, maybe someone to do vocal perc too. We'd also like to do some female-only and male-only pieces. The ladies can do that with five rich voices (emphasis on the rich, they are all very talented!). On the other hand, we three males wouldn't exactly fill out a good chord. We're not one of them Mongolian chanters who can sing two pitches at once.

I thought it sounded very good for the few weeks we've been rehearsing together as a group. It's also very refreshing to work with people who pick up music so quickly. Granted, most of the songs we've done so far haven't been all that complicated or difficult, but we've picked them up pretty quickly.

I'd love to post an MP3 of a song we did a week ago called "Go Ye Now In Peace" but I'm unsure of the copyright implications of mass distributing a performance. But hey, if you'd like to hear it, shoot me an email, and I'm sure I can figure out something. ;-)

So Colorful

ZOE's conference is held at the Woodmont Hills church in south Nashville. One of the neat things about the Woodmont Hills church is how colorful it is! The auditorium is really a glorified multipurpose room, but it has some outstanding color. The west side of the building (which sits on a slight slope) has some awesome color:

The rainbow wall was interesting. Light enters through a clear window, hitting a brick wall painted with a particular color. The light bounces off and onto the side wall of the building, creating the cool effect. As the theme was "Fearless", an orangey/yellow color was dominating. It shows strength, passion, and propensity not to give in or up.

On our way out Saturday night, we poked our head inside the children's ministry classroom, where they have "kids' church", or "childrens' bible hour" whatever you want to call it. Talk about a splash of color!

The flowers and petals are actually painted on the purple carpet. What a bright, warm, inviting place for kids to worship!

What do your favorite colors say about you? How do you use color in different areas of your life? Post a reply back at http://mynameisnotjonas.blogspot.com.

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2008 ZOE Workshop: Fearless

I was able to attend the 2008 ZOE Workshop Conference. The theme this year was "Fearless." The idea was that we should fear the Lord, and through fearing him, we have nothing else to fear.

Here are among the pictures I took: (or go to http://jeremymturner.com/2008zoe)



Friday night, ZOE Worship led us in several new songs as well as several old ones. It was incredible to hear so many voices raised in praise.

Saturday we had a class session, worship with ZOE Worship along with Mike Cope and Randy Harris, and lunch at an authentic Mex restaurant. After lunch we had another session of worship with Scott McKnight, and the final two sessions. Justin and I attended the music arranging track with DJ Bulls from Arlington, TX. I got a lot out of it!

And now.... I'd like to buy a keyboard and start playing again.