The Ostrich

A Story from MountainWings.com
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A man walks into a restaurant with a full-grown ostrich behind him.

As he sits, the waitress comes over and asks for their orders.

 

The man says, "I'll have a hamburger, fries and a coke,"

and turns to the ostrich, "What's yours?"

 

"I'll have the same," says the ostrich.

 

A short time later the waitress returns with the order.

"That will be $6.40 please," and the man reaches into his pocket

and pulls out the exact change for payment.

 

The next day, the man and the ostrich come again and the man says,

"I'll have a hamburger, fries and a coke," and the ostrich says,

"I'll have the same."

 

Once again the man reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.

 

This becomes a routine until late one evening, the two enter again.

 

"The usual?" asks the waitress.

"No, this is Friday night, so I will have a steak, baked potato

and salad," says the man, "same for me," says the ostrich.

 

A short time later the waitress comes with the order and says,

"That will be $12.62." Once again the man pulls exact change

out of his pocket and places it on the table.

 

The waitress can't hold back her curiosity any longer.

 

"Excuse me, sir. How do you manage to always come up with the

exact change out of your pocket every time?"

 

"Well," says the man, "several years ago I was cleaning the

attic and I found an old lamp. When I rubbed it a Genie

appeared and offered me two wishes.

 

My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything,

I would just put my hand in my pocket and the right amount of

money would always be there."

 

"That's brilliant!" says the waitress. "Most people would wish

for a million dollars or something, but you'll always be as rich

as you want for as long as you live!"

 

"That's right.  Whether it's a gallon of milk or a Rolls Royce,

the exact money is always there," says the man.

 

The waitress asks, "One other thing, sir, what's with the ostrich?"

 

The man sighs, pauses, and answers,

 

"My second wish was for a tall chick with long legs

who agrees with everything I say."

Audio A Concert Review

The concert last night was awesome! Had some solid bands and they were all wonderful.

First up was Manic Drive. I forgot how much I like these guys. They played like 6 songs and I knew 5 of them. Great stuff. These guys have a lot of potential.

Next up was Seventh Day Slumber. They did a couple worship songs and a couple of their songs. Then the lead singer gave part of his testimony and shared a powerful story. It was good.

Group 1 Crew came out. Their bassist and guitarist came out wearing white plastic masks which was really weird. Blanca is 5 and a half months pregnant and was still dancing all over the stage. Her hair wasn’t as big as last time I saw her. Still a pretty big afro. I also forgot how hard it is to get a good pic of them. They don’t stop moving! Love these guys.

The Audio Adrenaline concert was really good. I feel like I must confess I am a fanboy of these guys. I own all of their full length albums. I saw them once before live on their last tour with Mercy Me and I have watched the Worldwide and Hawaii concert DVDs. I started listening to them back in 1998 or so and I was crushed when Mark was losing his voice. My favorite album is Underdog, no question. A close second would be Lift.

Here are the songs they played. I can’t remember the exact order, but this is close to the set list.

They had an intro video that played some clips of their old songs. One was Some Kind of Zombie and then I knew they wouldn’t play that in the set.

Clap Your Hands

Get Down

Mighty Good Leader

The Comeback King

Never Gonna Be as Big as Jesus

Big House

Ocean Floor

He Moves You Move

Hands and Feet

Supernatural

Fire Never Sleeps

Kings and Queens

A couple things about the song selection:
1. I was glad to see them start out with Clap Your Hands. Classic one to start with.
2. Yes they did end Big House like Mark did. It did not feel the same, but it was ok.
3. Ocean Floor without Tyler Burkum singing is NOT the same. This is one of my favorite songs and I couldn't really enjoy it. Kmax got too fancy with this one.
4. They did one dc Talk song, Supernatural. Kmax was able to pull it off pretty well. I was mildly disappointed they didn't do Jesus Freak, but I will forgive them this time.
5. After Supernatural I was waiting for them to do Existence, Be, or Return of The Singer, but no such luck. I guess it makes sense he would want to move on from that part of his life.
6. Overall a good blend of original songs and new songs off of the K&Q album. Sad there was no song from the Worldwide album. Leaving 99 is a great song I wanted to see. They also sadly didn’t do Underdog or King. But I guess they can’t do every song.

Random thoughts: How old is Will? He founded Audio A way back in the day in. He is a cool guy. I love Dave Ghazarian! He might be my new favorite guitarist. He has awesome hair and can play quite well. There were only a couple hiccups but they are forgivable for not being on the road that long. Overall I like Audio A 2.0 and I hope these guys continue to make great music. 

That's all I got. Thanks for reading!

Iowa Adventure 2013

As some of you may know, in the past I have taken some solo hiking/camping trips. I went to Wisconsin last Summer and went up to Northern Minnesota three Summers ago. The main purpose of these trips was to get away from it all for a while and really be able to connect with God and relax. This year I am planning to do a Eastern and South Central Iowa trip sometime in August. (Yes, I begin planning way in advance so I can get reservations in and save money on any hotel rooms I book.)

Here's the thing... I need some help. Because Iowa is so small, the travel guides I use have not done an Iowa book yet and there are only a few smaller guides out there. I have bought one guide and got a resource from the Iowa Tourism people, but it's not a lot of detailed information. What I am asking is for some recommendations on where to visit and what to see based on things you have heard and places you have been. Good recommendations on places to eat, hotels, attractions, and oddball sights to see is what I really need. I like to plan a balanced trip full of different things to do. Here are some things I look for when planning a trip:

• Some good trails to hike. The more remote, the better. Hiking a loop with places to camp along is one of the things I look for, but I like to do other types of trails as well. I love camping by a lake. 
• Small towns. I have found I enjoy exploring a small town much more than navigating my way through big cities. (No offence big cities.)
• Oddball tourist places. If you looked at my pictures for Wisconsin, you would see some odd places I went to. I visited the center of the northern western hemisphere and some place where this guy takes old metal and creates models with them. I am usually up for any oddball visit.
• Historical places and museums. These can be anything from an old school house to a old mining camp to whatever... If it has some history, a guided tour, and something that intrigues me, I'm in.
• Mom and pop restaurants. Also called hole in the wall restaurants. Local food is always better. I like to stay on the inexpensive side of things, but I will do one meal at a more fancier restaurant.
• Big city tourist places. I like doing the tourist things too, but it's not one of my main interests. I usually plan one or two days to visit a big city and hit up the main attractions I think are cool.

I have my main hiking plan already kind of set, unless someone recommends a really cool hike. I plan to do a longer hike at Yellow River State Forest and a couple shorter hikes at Backbone State Park and Ledges State Park. I want to go the the Effigy Mounds and I might camp at Pikes Peak one night. I also plan to go visit Winterset because I drive by the signs all the time going to and from Kansas City. I was to visit the John Wayne Birthplace and see whatever bridges are left in Madison County. Here's perhaps one route I'm looking at, but none of this has been set in stone. I would like to stay within this general area, but all suggestions are welcome. Visiting Davenport isn't for sure, I just figure that could be the big city I visit. Dubuque might also be the major city I visit. I have not decided yet.

So there you go! Help me plan my vacation, PLEASE. Leave a suggestion here, post it on my Facebook, send me a message, or whatever. Just no telepathy please. That usually gets mixed messages when I receive the signal. Ha!

Looking for the Sun in the Rain

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

~James 1:2-4

It has been a bit chilly here in Iowa the past couple days. Well, chilly may be a bit of an understatement. A better word would be frigid. The high on Monday was 5 with the low of -10. And then of course the wind chill made it feel like -20. Tuesday was a little warmer, but not by much. When it gets this cold, people seem a bit more bitter. They start talking about moving south and complain about the weather all day. Contrast this to the Summer when Iowa has some beautiful weather and no one complains about it then. They only start complaining when the humidity sinks in and the temps get really high. I am sure there are plenty of people that wish it would be 70 and sunny all year round.

That's how we want life too. We want everything just right, all the time. No hassles, no stress, no pain, no sorrow. But that's not how the Christian life works. We will face trials. The Bible does not hide that fact. But I think sometimes suffering through the bitter cold helps us appreciate the nice sunny days. In the same sense, the trials we go through help us appreciate when life is good. If we had it good all the time, we would take it for granted and not thank God for giving us good days. Trials also help draw us closer to God. Time and time again you can see that played out in the Old Testament with the Jews. Every time life would be good for them, they would turn to idol worship. So God would allow them to go through another trial and they would repent and return to following God. Like the Jews in the Old Testament, we realize in our trials that we cannot do things on our own and we look to God to help us through. It is also in those trials that we are more vulnerable and more willing to allow God to mold us into who He wants us to be. So this is why James says to consider trials pure joy. It is in those times God can work the most. So while trials bring pain and sorrow, it is then that God is working the most. Remember God is working through your trials. Rely on God and remember to look for the good in those trials. Also remember better days are ahead. God will bring you through this. It's suppose to get up to 21 today. While it's not 70, it's still warmer. And Summer will come.