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It took a bit of looking for me, I am getting older and I have never been real observant. When I did see it though, the emotions that washed over me where overwhelming. My curiosity ran wild. I wanted to know who put it there? How long ago? Are they still together, still alive? I may never solve these mysteries, but with this snapshot, they will forever haunt my thoughts.

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Why were all the branches drooping like that. I had never seen one do that before, except trees that are supposed to droop. So I got closer and saw this:

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Maybe it has something to do with the crap load of seed pods on it!

Ya think?

Title:I’m Fine with God… It’s Christians I Can’t Stand
Author(s):Bruce Bickel & Stan Jantz
Publisher:Harvest House Publishers
Pages:183

I’m fine with God…It’s Christians I can’t stand (Getting past the religious garbage in the search for spiritual truth). That is one long title/subtitle, there I got that off my chest. Now lets get down to the nitty gritty. This is one of those books that can make you think, a lot. It can also make you cringe, until you get the point. They cover several different kinds of Christians that they can’t stand in the book for example: Christians who think they have a monopoly on the truth, Christians who believe God wants them to be rich, Christians who don’t know what they believe, as well as several others.

I saw myself in a few of the ones they covered, and felt rightly ashamed as I hadn’t realized how annoying the habits I had were. I think most people will find a little of themselves somewhere in this book, which brings me to my biggest point. Unfortunately, the ones who really need this book would never pick it up because of the title alone. I have dealt with my share of modern day pharisee’s and I can tell you right now that they would never read this book. They are convinced that they are perfect and need no help.

Oop’s, I got sidetracked a bit there. All in all this is a really good book. It may help you, it may anger you, actually I am sure it will anger you at some point but stick with it, it is all worth it in the end. There were a few chapters where I was quite annoyed with the authors until they made their point. That only happened a few times before I realized that the way it was laid out was kind of like a roller coaster. Were going up a hill, very big hill, seems to take too long, you start to get annoyed then voila, you’re at the top of the hill, you can see where it is going and down you go, full speed. That may not be the best way to describe it but the only other one I can think of is slightly offensive.

I am giving this book 5 stars and it deserves every one of them. They worked me hard and brought me to realize a few things about myself, not sure if that was their intent, but hey, it happens.
[rating:5]

The book, I’m fine with God…It’s Christians I can’t stand, was provided to me at no cost by Active Christian Media and Harvest House Publishers for review purposes. To become a reviewer for ACM you may click here.

Indiana has the oddest weather I have seen ever! There were unconfirmed reports of tornado touchdowns and a hailstorm that made me even notice. It didn’t beat the one we had a few years ago that was piled against the building from the wind, that hail drift was over 4 feet tall. This might have made it were it not for the fact that it was still on the warm side when it started.

Again another really cool storm wasted because a) I was at work, and b) it was dark outside.

Me and the weather systems around here need to have a serious chat about this crap!

In other news…

Wait, there is no other news.

Man my life is boring!

Granted, I don’t watch tv very often, but now when I do it will be much more enjoyable.

I will write something more interesting later on today, hopefully.

I was immediately fascinated, a little annoyed by the Xmas part, but I can be forgiving, at least the didn’t call it holiday!

So anyway I picked it up and read through the track list, it’s like a who’s who of eighties hair bands doing Christmas songs. Count me in, I could use a trip down memory lane, you know, relive my semi-youth.

When we were done at that particular store and were leaving, I was unwrapping it on the way to the car. My wife didn’t say a thing, she had already resigned herself to the fact that I was going to want to listen to it. She’s pretty cool like that, she is not a big fan of hard rock, even the eighties glam type, but she endured.

I am going to be extra nice and give you a track listing along with my thoughts about each song after it’s listing, so lets get down to business shall we!

1. Jingle Bells- Skid Row: This one was a surprise. It started out normal enough, for about a second. Then they kicked it in and rocked it. All in all, pretty good, I liked it, my wife, not really.
2. Happy Christmas (war is over)- Winger: First off, I wasn’t a real big Winger fan when they were popular, but I was surprised by this one. It was really good and they stayed fairly true to the original. I liked it, caught my wife singing along too!
3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas- Jani Lane of Warrant: Alright, but honestly his voice just isn’t right for this IMHO. So this one I thought was just eh, my wife, she was gripping the steering wheel a little too hard.
4. I’ll Be Home For Christmas- Twisted Sister with Lita Ford: How could something with such cool potential go wrong, well they stuck Lita on it, thats how. Don’t get me wrong, she had some good stuff in her career, this just wasn’t one of them. I liked it, till the second verse when she started caterwauling. I won’t even go into what my wife was doing, other than to say I didn’t know anyones face could scrunch up so much!
5. White Christmas- Queensryche: Standard Queensryche fair. I wasn’t surprised, nor was I disappointed. I think my wife even enjoyed it a little bit. I don’t think she is going to run out and buy any of their old cd’s, but you know.
6. Run Rudolph Run- L.A. Guns: This one rocked pretty well, I enjoyed it a lot. My wife had taken to talking over the ones she wasn’t enjoying, she talked a lot during this one.
7. Rocking Around the Christmas Tree- Firehouse: This one was a surprise, they did a very nice job on it, again I caught my wife singing along to this one.
8. Naughty Naughty Christmas- Danger Danger: This one was a stretch, even for me. Not bad, but not exactly something I would play for any of my Christian friends either.
9. Blue Christmas- Tom Keifer of Cinderella: This was the one I wanted the whole CD for, I was definitely pleased with this one. I have always loved Tom’s voice and he really did very well with this song. I think my wife enjoyed it as well, at least her face was back to normal and she didn’t talk all the way through it.
10. Jingle Bell Rock- Nelson: I will be fair on this one, I hated Nelson and never really enjoyed them during their heyday. That said, they did an admirable job with this and I found myself singing along with them. Wife, smiley but she did talk a bit.
11. Silent Night- Faster Pussycat: OMG what the heck was that. I really enjoyed FP during their career but this was out there. When the heck did they go industrial? This was not the FP I knew and loved. My wife scrunched, she talked, she darn near wept.(I have listened to this one a few more times and it is starting to grow on me, but I still don’t know what happened to FP)
12. Santa Clause is Coming to Town- Dokken: Vrooom, just like in the eighties, it was rockin with Dokken. I really liked it, my wife tried to jump out of the car, and she was driving!
13. Happy Holiday- Enuff Z’Nuff: Yep their name says it all, enough is enough. My wife and I both scrunched on this one!
14. Winter Wonderland- Stryper: Please don’t tell my friends this, but I really liked Stryper back in the day. I have been enjoying their new stuff as well. They did an excellent job with this, my wife even smiled again!
15. Christmas Love- Billy Idol: Not bad, I mean it is Billy Idol so you know it is going to be gruff from the get go. I liked it, my wife tried to claw her eardrums out!

So there you go. I gave you my opinion on all the tracks, not that it matters much if your taste runs differently than mine. This ran very long, this may be the longest post ever! For me that is.

Enjoy, and I am sorry!
(not really sorry)

See, we had our company Christmas party on Saturday and the jury is still out on whether it was worth it or not. I spend enough time with those people throughout the week, why do I have to hang with them on my weekend?

My biggest problem with the whole thing was they decided to have it in a piano bar. I have nothing against pianos, just bars. I have never really liked bars, even when I was drinking a lot I didn’t do it in bars. I have always felt that the whole atmosphere in most bars is a little too rowdy for my taste.

The piano players were quite good though and kept us entertained. I do enjoy piano music and they knew pretty much anything that I threw at them for requests. Everyone else was requesting stupid stuff that really doesn’t go well on a piano but they played them anyway. They were happy that at least I was trying.

I have some photos but for the sake of my job I won’t post them, unless they tick me off again, then all bets are off!

So how was your weekend?