Music Mondays - Chris Tomlin "I Will Rise"

Every generation or so, there seems to come along a songwriter that has a special anointing.  For my generation Chris Tomlin is certainly leading the way.  This is one of my favorite songs of his.  His lyrics are just so powerful and inspiring.

Music Mondays - Zac Brown Band "As She's Walking Away" featuring Alan Jackson

I thought since the sophomore effort from the Zac Brown Band releases tomorrow, I would feature a song from "You Get What You Give". I've listened to the album preview on Rhapsody and I can't wait to get a copy.

I've been a fan of ZBB since I first heard them on the Rick and Bubba Show several years ago. I started following ZBB on Myspace and their own website. I signed up for their newsletter and remember well reading about them finally signing with a major label.

They sent out an offer for the pre-orders that they would autograph the first 400, so I decided to grab one not really caring if I was one of the lucky ones but I did think it might be pretty cool if I was that fortunate. A few weeks before the CD was set to release, I got a letter in the mail apologizing that the record label had pushed back the street date for the CD and how sorry they were about it.

Fast forward about 4-6 weeks later and I went to the mailbox and found a package and remember thinking to myself that I hadn't ordered anything recently. Inside was a pre-release copy of the CD signed by all of the band members but what was really cool was what the letter said. It apologized about the delay in getting the CD and said that as soon as the full release was sent out, they would send a copy of it as well that I could keep or pass along to friends or family.

They followed through as well. Not long after the first CD came, a second one arrived identical to the first. Guess I was one of the first 400 because I had another autographed copy of the CD from ZBB.

I was already a fan but I gained a new level or respect for the band for how they handled that scenario. There's not many groups that would do that for their fans. And if for some reason, you're not a fan of ZBB, you should be. I think to sum up their sound best is that they're a little bit Alabama, a little bit Jimmy Buffett, and a little bit Charlie Daniels Band and I'm quite sure this won't be my last Music Monday on the ZBB.

A little ray of sunshine...

Tuesday was a day I had anticipated for several weeks as I had an appointment with Dr. Rebecca Raby, who is an immunologist, to hopefully get some answers to some minor health-related/allergy things that have been going on.

Lets rewind a bit to Monday night to setup what happened early Tuesday morning and how my day got started. See, my XBox kicked the dust a few months ago with an E-74 error and I knew it was going to have to be sent back to Microsoft for the warranty repair. So I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with the technician to get the repair label and work order setup. Well, as of Tuesday morning, I still didn't have an email with my case number or the label, which I thought was odd. So I decided to call back in to tech support. Turned out my gut feeling was right, there was an issue. They had sent the email to jaime.gilliam instead of me. So that led to my call being escalated to a supervisor to cancel the previous label/work order and setup another.

So not a terrible start to the day but still a bit perturbing. I left work right after lunch to get to my 1 p.m. appointment and got their 10 minutes or so early. I signed in and sat down. After a few minutes, the receptionist called me to the window and notified me that they didn't have any record of me having an appointment. They tell me to check next door with Dr. Lon Raby, the dermatologist, to see if I have an appointment with them and sure enough, I'm scheduled with the wrong Dr. Raby.

A forgivable mistake right? Maybe, but see, I've been to see the dermatologist Dr. Raby before so I wasn't a new patient. You would have thought this would have clued my doctor's office in when they didn't ask for all my info but apparently not. So now, I've waited six weeks for an appointment that could have been made five weeks ago. (The good news with that is that I have an appointment tomorrow morning with the right Dr. Raby but no thanks to the ineptness of my primary care physician's staff (more on them in a minute).)

After I get back to the office, I have a minor skirmish with a co-worker, who doesn't want to do something to help me out on a project because it's not her project. Well guess what? It wasn't my project either but I put in nearly two days worth of work on it and she couldn't give me five minutes.

So, to say the least I did not have the sunniest disposition Tuesday afternoon. I stopped by CVS Pharmacy on my way home to pick up a prescription that I had put in for a refill on Monday morning. Naturally, they hadn't filled it. The doctor said I needed to call the office. Now you would think, that when the pharmacy couldn't fill it, they would have picked up the phone or sent me an email, but no. They just let me waste my time coming up there rather than a little decent customer service.

I figured that had to be the end of the run for the bad day as I was getting home finally. I knew Beth would make me feel better just by wrapping her arms around me. It turned out, she was on the phone learning the details of some major drama going on in her family which of course paled in comparison to my bad day. Looking back now, I feel like an idiot for letting such small minute things upset me.

Oh yeah about that little ray of sunshine. As my pity party was winding down, a friend replied to an email I'd sent last week asking a question about helping out with something and she told me she'd be glad to but she wasn't sure if she'd be able to help all the way through. You see, she's having a baby. Not that big of a deal to most but you see, she miscarried the last time and she's a little older than normal moms-to-be. In her own words "Bet I'm the only one pregnant at my high school reunion in October!!!". How awesome is that? I pray that God gives them a healthy bundle of joy this winter and lights up their lives forever.

I'm thankful that he gave me that nugget at the end of what I thought was a rough day.

Music Mondays - Sanctus Real "Lead Me"

For the past 7-8 weeks our church, the Light, has split up into classes of all men and all women after our time of worship together. It's been an invigorating study for the men and from all accounts for the ladies as well.

Our men were challenged two Sunday's ago to take the challenge of this song and it has been in a constant rotation on my iPod since. I challenge all husbands and fathers to listen to the words and to do just what the song says.