MacMike

Thanksgiving Table

What's so special about this table setting? It was taken pre-feast on Thanksgiving Day. We acquired the unfinished version of this table a few months ago and it has been living in the garage awaiting stain and finish. Since I promised Peggy to have it done by Thanksgiving, I got real serious about finishing it the week before. Here is the final product. It did a wonderful job of holding all the food and plates and providing a place for eight hungry people to give thanks for all God has done in our lives this year.

Christmas Tree

One of the COOL benefits of living in the mountains is shopping for our Christmas tree. Having a live tree in the house the day after Thanksgiving has become important to our family. In Florida, we always bought one from the Boys and Girls Club (and paid way too much!). In NC, we have found a Christmas tree farm in our little burg that has beautiful trees (for about half what we paid in Bradenton). Here are some pics of Jennifer and Austin and I picking the perfect tree.

Jott

I found the coolest tool a few weeks ago and I use it all the time! It's free, and you should consider using it too. Jott is a way to send yourself reminders. When someone at church or at rehearsal or while driving tells me something that I need to remember, I call Jott on my cell phone and give myself a message. I set the time of the reminder and it both emails me AND texts my phone! Did I mention it was free?

You can read a review by David Pogue at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=Jott&st=cse&scp=2

Just go to http://jott.com and sign up.

Third Day Concert

Third Day is truly one of the great Christian rock bands of today! They rocked Asheville Civic Center last night. The highlight of the night happened shortly after Mac Powell walked off the stage during a sizzling, Mark Lee guitar solo. Suddenly, he appeared in the middle of the floor seats - we were just 5 rows away - with his acoustic and started singing. The rest of the band soon joined him and did a short, acoustic set just a few feet from where we were! We loved it. Of course, I forgot my camera, but got this shot on my phone.

Boost Your Immunity

In the December 2008 issue of Real Simple, you can find an article entitled, "Boost Your Immunity." #4 says this:

Research conducted at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, in Frankfurt, indicates that singing helps improve both a person's mood and the levels of antibodies that protect from invading germs. Also, a study at Willamette University, in Salem, Oregon, found that when people played percussion instruments, like the drums, and sang along, they showed greater concentrations of these antibodies than did those who simply listened to music. This is an example of how something that is enjoyable is also good for you, says Carl Charnetski, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Wiles University, in Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania. So go ahead and drum the steering wheel while you drive or belt out a tune in the shower.

Singing is GOOD for YOU

Brian Eno believes that singing is good for you. Check this out:

Weekend Edition Sunday, November 23, 2008 · I believe in singing. I believe in singing together.

A few years ago a friend and I realized that we both loved singing but didn't do much of it. So we started a weekly a capella group with just four members. After a year we started inviting other people to join. We didn't insist on musical experience — in fact some of our members had never sung before. Now the group has ballooned to around 15 or 20 people.

I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor. A recent long-term study conducted in Scandinavia sought to discover which activities related to a healthy and happy later life. Three stood out: camping, dancing and singing.

Well, there are physiological benefits, obviously: You use your lungs in a way that you probably don't for the rest of your day, breathing deeply and openly. And there are psychological benefits, too: Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And then there are what I would call "civilizational benefits." When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings — to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

Well here's what we do in an evening: We get some drinks, some snacks, some sheets of lyrics and a strict starting time. We warm up a bit first.

The critical thing turns out to be the choice of songs. The songs that seem to work best are those based around the basic chords of blues and rock and country music. You want songs that are word-rich, but also vowel-rich because it's on the long vowels sounds of a song such as "Bring It On Home To Me" ("You know I'll alwaaaaays be your slaaaaave"), that's where your harmonies really express themselves. And when you get a lot of people singing harmony on a long note like that, it's beautiful.

But singing isn't only about harmonizing pitch like that. It has two other dimensions. The first one is rhythm. It's thrilling when you get the rhythm of something right and you all do a complicated rhythm together: "Oh, when them cotton balls get a-rotten, you can't pick very much cotton." So when 16 or 20 people get that dead right together at a fast tempo that's very impressive. But the other thing that you have to harmonize besides pitch and rhythm is tone. To be able to hit exactly the same vowel sound at a number of different pitches seems unsurprising in concept, but is beautiful when it happens.

So I believe in singing to such an extent that if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing become a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.

1st of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Habit 1 : Be Proactive Your life doesn't just "happen." Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. you choose sadness. you choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results. Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power--you have the freedom to choose your response. one of the most important things you choose is what you say. Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself. A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do--they have no choice. Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence. Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.

Great Books

Quick apology - No blogs since 4th of July? Hmmmm, well I'm back.

A few months ago, my buddy and Worship Leader, Josh Fowler, challenged me to read two books that he was reading: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and How to Win Friends and Influence People. I had read 7 Habits back in the day, but never HTWFAIP, although I've read dozens of quotes from it. I knew if I dug through my many boxes of books (currently in storage) I could find 7 Habits, and Josh told me he picked up HTWFAIP for $7 at Barnes & Noble. I don't really need much of an excuse to visit there, so I dropped in a few days later and found a hard copy of both HTWFAIP AND How to Stop Worrying bundled together. SCORE! AND, both for $6.99!

I was attending Real Estate School at the time, so I would go out to my truck during the breaks and read another chapter. It's really easy to read and I'll write up a review for you in the near future. 7 Habits was also dug out of storage, and although its not as easy a read, I enjoyed it just as much.

During this same period of time, I began working for Ben Beasley, of Benjamin T Beasley & Associates in Hendersonville, as the head of his Commercial Appraisal Department. At my interview, he told me that there are two books that influence how he does business and he highly recommended that I read them. Can you guess the titles of those two books? Yep, you're right.

Evidently, there is something about holidays that motivates me to share a blog, so HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Anyone Can Sing

As a long-time choir director, I've been saying for years that everyone can learn to sing. That is despite the fact that in my first choir, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Columbia, AL, there was a "bass" that never hit the right note. He threw his head back and "sang" at the top of his lungs and no amount of coaching seemed to help him. Alas, this article states that I am wrong. A certain percentage of the population really CAN'T sing. They basically fall into three categories: People who know they can't sing, people who think they can sing and dudes in emo bands ...

Lilly Grace

Welcome to our world, Lilly Grace! We've been waiting for you with great anticipation. You have the most awesome big brother and the greatest parents! Oh, and your grandparents couldn't be prouder.

Lilly "graced" us with her presence, February 24, 2008. She weighed 7 lbs and was 21" long.

Check out her photo album!