have you ever...

So, I've decided to share some of my songwriting demos with the ragamuffinwriter readers out there. Now you're not just ragamuffinwriter readers, you're ragamuffinwriter listeners! Feel free to download and burn and share and all of that good stuff.

Not all of the songwriting demos will be of a very high recording quality. A few were recorded in a studio. Most are recorded in my closet with an old laptop, free software, and a $9 microphone.

The first song I want to share with you is a little number called "have you ever...". I had the privilege of recording this one at Posey Hedges' very nice studio in beautiful Midtown Memphis.

have you ever...

Click here to listen or right-click to download and save! (4MB)

Note: Some folks may have trouble opening the file in Firefox, but IE should play it without any trouble!

Sam the Shoplifting Seagull

Beating the heat

Limited by an Imaginary Lid

Sometimes we're just like fleas...except for the flying part.

How I Dodged the Dart of Death (or not)

Looks like the falling out of the car episode deserves its own post, so here's the recap....

I believe mom was sick with Mono. We were living on Ashton and P was helping her with us rugrats. I believe P and I drove up to Stuckey's in the Dodge Dart to get something - I can't remember what. We were heading back home, and P was turning left off of Whitten onto Raleigh-LaGrange (they've since reworked this entire intersection, so it looks nothing like it did then; gone is the high, steep embankment and the trees) when the passenger door just flew open.

Fortunately, a) P wasn't going very fast (shocker, I know), and b) my foot got caught under the gigantic "factory A/C box" mounted under the dash. The only thing keeping the back of my head from smacking the pavement was my toes jammed up under that contraption.

When P noticed the door had flown open, she slammed on the brakes, which dislodged my foot from behind the box and dropped me - relatively gently - out on the side of the road. I think there was more danger in my rolling down the embankment or being run over by the Dart's back tire than of getting hurt falling out.

All I remember after that is me scrambling back into the car and P being freaked out, but it wasn't really her fault. The doors on that tank were so heavy; no kid could have possibly closed one completely without help from an adult.

Come to think of it, it was all her fault. P, I'm telling mom!

Random Fun!

What's the cheapest you've paid for gas?

This morning I put gas in the motor car and it cost me $3.83 per gallon. What's sad is that I was excited about paying only $3.83. For a guy who commutes 80 miles a day (through the desert with no A/C), this is kind of a big deal!

I remember paying less than a dollar per gallon back when I first started driving. For some reason I recall paying 89 cents once and being very happy about it, but for most of my high school years, the price was between 98 cents and $1.09.

So what's the cheapest you've ever paid for gas?

Complete Starbucks US Store Closure List

Corrected at 11:27 MST. Thanks to my unnamed Starbucks sources.

A few observations:

• Only one store in Arizona is closing.
• Eighty-eight stores in California are closing!
• Ten Tennessee Starbucks stores are closing (including the "Dirty Dexter").

For a complete list, click here. Click here to read my Open Letter to Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz.

Blondes 'to die out in 200 years'

Blondes to die out in 200 years, insert joke here.

Real Christians of Genius

Elk Burgers!

Take 1 pound of ground elk and place in a bowl. Coat thoroughly with lemon pepper and onion salt. Lightly top with chili powder, form into patties and smoke over hickory chips at medium heat for 20 minutes, turning only once at 10 minutes. After turning, brush lightly with your favorite sauce or melted butter. Enjoy!

Wildfire from our window

With the rain comes lighting, and with lighting comes wildfires.

Here's what the wildfire in the West Valley looks like from Mullin and Lincoln's bedroom window in the East Valley. Don't worry. The orange in the corner is just the sunset. The cloud is from the fire.

Finally...RAIN!

Firefox 3 is here (sort of)

Well, it looks like the world's enthusiasm for Firefox has crippled Mozilla's website. I guess the powers that be underestimated our adoration for the "little browser that could." I could be imagining things, but the Internet in general has seemed a little sluggish today.

The first few times I tried to get Firefox 3, I'd get the download page with a version 3 download button, only to push it and have version 2 start downloading onto my machine. Then, for quite a while, the site wouldn't load at all. But after many patient attempts, I finally met with success at about 12:15pm, MST.

And there was much rejoicing.

Memory Lane: The Converse Weapon

The Converse Weapon is my favorite basketball shoe of all time, even if they did weigh 14.5 pounds each.



What's really amazing is that, in its day, this commercial was considered clever and hip.

Marketing gold!

Tesreau Baseball: Then and Now

A mom on Mullin's Little League team took some awesome pictures of each of the kids and gave them to the parents at the end of the season. She did an excellent job. Here's one of the shots.

Kinda reminds me of another famous Tesreau hurler.

1. Jeff Tesreau's Wiki
2. A good bio on Jeff Tesreau
3. Learn more about Charles Monroe "Jeff" Tesreau on this Google book search.

Interesting facts about Jeff Tesreau:

• As a rookie, led the league in ERA (1.92, some records state 1.96), along with the legendary Walter Johnson, the first year it became an official statistic
• Threw a no-hitter on September 6, 1912 vs. the Philadelphia Phillies
• 2.43 lifetime ERA, 880 strikeouts
• 115 (some records say 119) wins in less than 6 seasons
• Started three games in the 1912 World Series
  
• Known for having the best spitball in the majors
• Dartmouth baseball's all-time winningest coach
  

Young Hillary Clinton

Bad day at the office?

So, I blew off a little steam. What's the big deal?



What do you think? Is this worker freak-out caught on tape real or staged?

Welcome to my neighborhood!

• Hundreds of bales of hay burn
• 11,000 gallons of sewage spills
• Serial child molester chased though neighborhood and captured

It's still nowhere near as exciting as my beloved Memphis! I haven't watched any Arizona local news since I moved here almost two years ago, but I have to confess I can't go too many days without checking up on Cameron and Dee, T-Bates, Brian Teigland, Joe, Donna, Dave, Rockin' Ronnie, "fear-monger" Tim, Jim "Mick" Jagger(s), Tinkerbell, and Mayberry's own town drunk, Otis Campbell.




(A special thank you to my brother who tuned me into this very entertaining addition to the Fox13 team.)

For an inside look at the local news business in Memphis, check out Joe Larkins' new and old blogs.

Memorial Day Fun

There's no such thing as barbecue in this part of the world, so this Memorial Day, I decided to smoke my own shoulder. Well, it wasn't my shoulder. It originally belonged to a pig.

I used Dad's special dry rub and smoking instructions, but unfortunately, I haven't found an authentic sauce out here yet. May just have to make my own. I rounded out our cookout menu with a new coleslaw recipe I concocted, baked beans, and Grandma's hot fudge cake. Yum.



While tending to the fire, I even managed to snap a photo of the elusive Mullin. The older he gets, the harder it is to get any cooperation out of him when a camera's in my hand.



His 8 Year Old pics were a fight from start to finish.





Lincoln and Shiloh, however, still love having their pictures taken.

Meet Maria Sue

Steven Curtis Chapman has been such a blessing to so many for so long. Say a prayer today for him and his precious family as they grieve an incredible loss.

And hug your babies.

Three Things

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME:
01 | One-on-one conversations (especially with other men)
02 | Taking chances
03 | Becoming like my mother

THREE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME LAUGH:
01 | Lincoln
02 | "The" Matt Davis
03 | Jerry Seinfeld

THREE THINGS I LOVE:
01 | Brandi
02 | Fatherhood
03 | Trees

THREE THINGS I HATE:
01 | Small groups
02 | Arm-twisting
03 | Conditional love

THREE THINGS I DON’T UNDERSTAND:
01 | The acceptance of paleoanthropology as science
02 | At least half of the Sermon on the Mount
03 | Atheists

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK:
01 | Helm's Deep Aragorn action figure
02 | Three tiny plastic green army men
03 | University of Memphis coffee mug

THREE THINGS I’M DOING RIGHT NOW:
01 | Wishing I was doing something else
02 | Listening to my iPod
03 | Fixating on the mountains just outside my window

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE:
01 | Visit Scotland, Ireland, and England
02 | Retrace the Lewis and Clark Trail
03 | See my children live lives filled with infectious joy, radical freedom, and surprising faithfulness

THREE THINGS I CAN DO:
01 | Carry a tune
02 | Strum a guitar
03 | Turn a clever phrase

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY PERSONALITY:
01 | Kind
02 | Guarded
03 | Shy

THREE THINGS I CAN’T DO:
01 | Measure and cut
02 | Say no
03 | What I really want to

THREE THINGS I THINK YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO:
01 | A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band by Rich Mullins
02 | The demo version of Rich Mullins' song "Hard to Get" (Disk 1)
03 | Your children - Maybe more than anything else, it communicates to them that they are worth something

THREE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE FOODS:
01 | Dad's smoked pork shoulder
02 | Fried catfish fillets
03 | Sunday lunch at Paw Paw and Grandma's

THREE THINGS I’D LIKE TO LEARN:
01 | How to build my own log cabin
02 | Confidence
03 | How to make a living in jeans, flip-flops and a t-shirt

THREE BEVERAGES I DRINK REGULARLY:
01 | Coffee
02 | Root Beer
03 | Mountain Dew

THREE SHOWS I WATCHED WHEN I WAS A KID:
01 | Family Ties
02 | The A-Team
03 | Dukes of Hazzard

Jenga!

Shiloh Sings

No Love