Jesus Messiah – Milan Vineyard

Here’s the second track from our CD. Manny Begley sings the lead on this one. The rest of the tracks are almost done and the CD should be out in a couple weeks.

Marvelous Light – Milan Vineyard

Here’s the first track from a CD our worship team is putting together. We made the CD to give away to visitors. Hope you enjoy.

Kris or Adam?

I’m still reeling in the euphoria of last nights AI finale.  Wondering if what I watched was real or staged (Much like Tattiana’s award situation).  Rueben – that was a great look.  LOL!

I read this article today and found it interesting.  I’m sure there’s a lot of people on both extremes of the fence day.  Really mad or Really happy.

Personally – I was really happy.  For the first time ever I actually voted.  (3 times for Kris).  My wife and I were taunting each other just before the results.  She was for the other competitor.  The loser.  I was for Kris.  The winner.

I’ll be honest, I fully expected Adam to win.  But I couldn’t let my wife know, so I held fast to my prediction of Kris stealing the crown from the would-be King.

When the announcement was made there was silence for what seemed like a half an hour in heaven my house.  We stared at the TV screen in disbelief.  I triumphantly shouted!

Reading the comments it seems like it was a love or hate thing for Adam.  It was like that for our household.  My whole family loved him.  I hated him.  To them Adam was the superstar and Kris was the adorable runner up.  I never saw it that way.

Don’t get me wrong.  Adam has a lot of talent.  I really liked about three of the songs he did on idol.  Usually the stripped back ones.  But he lost me with his constant screeching.  The first time he did it I was in awe like everyone else not many people can do that, but he never stopped.  Almost every song, he would jump off the melody and went two or three steps or octaves above (just because he could).  Note From Bono: “Simon – WTF was that!” I don’t blame Adam entirely.  Everyone, judges and fans encouraged him the whole way.  They practically handed him the title every week.  (which made detractors of Adam even more emboldened in their hatred).

What it came down to for me was two things:  Music Style and Performance Style

If I have the option of listening to a Kiss/Gun’s and Roses/Iron Maiden CD or a Seconhand Seranade/Daschboard confessional/John Mayer/James Taylor/Carey Brothers/etc… etc…  I choose the later every time.  I’m not a fan of heavy metal, hair band, eighties metal, screaming shouting rock.  I like the singer song writer, acoustic, laid back easy going songs that have feeling and emotion.

The second thing.  Every time I watched Adam I felt like I was front row at a show on the Vegas strip.  Or watching a modern version of the Rocky horror show.  It was a circus, a spectacle.  It was not real.  Never felt genuine. It didn’t seem to fit today.  If this was circa 1985 he wins hands down, but it’s not.  I felt like I was watching a guy made to be a broadway star trying to become a rock star.  After the entire season of watching AI, I feel like I know nothing about the kind of person Adam is.  I feel absolutely nothing for him.

Kris’ performance style was completely different.  (Not necessarily better)  I hope that’s clear for everyone I’ve completely pissed off right now.  But it’s the style that I liked, the style I would choose.  I feel invested in Kris.  Connected to Kris.  I feel like I know the kind of person he is.  I feel like he is the person you see on the stage and I like that.  He’s real.  He’s genuine.  I’ll never see him in Vegas.  Maybe not in a huge stadium.  But i could see him a small theatre in A^2 or maybe the DTE theatre.  I would enjoy sitting down with him over coffee.  Talking about life.  Playing the guitar.

So Kris or Adam?

And whose CD will you buy when it comes out?

Why I became a Mac fanboy (Windows 7, VNC issues)

So I just got a used PC from my brother-in-law, which I’m excited about.  I’m planning on using it as a media server.  Would love to hook it up to my tv and use the tv as a monitor.

I’ve loaded Windows 7 on it.  Which looks pretty slick.  But I’ve been trying to do a couple things with it that have me really frustrated. 

The main thing I want to do is enable screen sharing from my Macbook to the PC.  I’ve just about conceded that I won’t be able to use my HDTV as a monitor, but I don’t want to add another monitor.  I just want the PC to be a server and I want to be able to control it and make changes to it through my Macbook.

I’m having some problems.

On my Macbook it’s easy.  My Macbook actually has it’s own built in VNC client.  I go to my system preferences and turn on sharing.  Go to finder, connect as server, type in VNC://Whatever IP address is.  And it works.

Not so easy with my PC.  I started with the firewall/network settings.  Allowing certain things that I thought should be allowed to have access to work…nothing.  Then I basically allowed everything to have access…nothing worked.  Then I tried turning off the firewall…still nothing.  I’m at a loss.

I need someone to help me that knows a lot about setting up VNC on a windows PC.  I know it’s possible.  It probably isn’t that hard if you know what you’re looking for.  But once it again.  It’s for reasons like this that I switched to a Mac and I’m loving it.

If you think you could help me please leave a comment and contact info.

Haylie…

My wife asked me to write a paragraph or two about my daughter, Haylie (12 Years Old), for some project of hers at school.  I spent some time thinking about it and here’s what I came up with.  It might be over the top for her assignment, but oh we’ll see.

I love Haylie.  She is my only daughter, my firstborn.  She is the best thing I’ve ever done.  She is the most important thing I’ve ever been a part of.  Yet I know I cannot take credit for the person she is, the person she is becoming right before my eyes, the person she will be.  She is mine, but she is uniquely her own.  She is mine, but she does not belong to me.  She is my life, yet she does not live for me.

Because of Haylie, I know what it means to love and be loved.  Because of Haylie, I believe in things like goodness and beauty.  I see them every time I look at her.  She gives me hope for a better tomorrow and I look forward to sharing it with her.

I could not imagine a world without Haylie.

Without Haylie my world would cease to exist.