Renovation under way

Please bear with me. Thanks.

Save WGTS

I have lived in the suburbs of Washington, DC my entire life. There are a few things (surprisingly) of value in these parts, and one of them is a Christian radio station located at 91.9 on the radio dial, WGTS.

I used to listen to them back when they were a classical radio station during the week, and played lame Christian music on Saturdays.

Some years ago, they had a change in format to contemporary Christian music, and while initially I remember it was a rough switch, both musically and in church politics, they have definitely found their stride and have easily become one of the best stations in the DC metro area.

Unfortunately, the radio station is governed by a college, and those that run the college which is in poor financial health, are planning on selling the station. Mind you, the station is self-sustaining. I remember back in the day, twice a year, they held seemingly never ending telethons to raise money. These fund raisers lasted for several weeks a pop. Now, however, they raise all their money in a matter of days for the course of the entire year. So, currently the college is ridding all their assets to infuse their coffers with cash.

If they were going to sell the station to a Christian station so they can keep the same format and the same hosts, it would definitely be less of a blow. But as of right now, NPR is the highest bidder at $30 million, so it appears that they could walk away with the station.

There are two other Christian stations in the DC area that provide quality talk shows with some music thrown in, but neither offer the product that WGTS provides.

While I do listen to WGTS (though I honestly prefer Baltimore's WRBS) and complain about the antics of DJ Angela Stevens, and the playlist of WGTS that seems to include the same exact song at the same times on certain days, its me just being petty. Probably most people will actually consider my complaints assets to the station. To each his own, I guess.

I cannot imagine the nation's capital without a station that plays Christian music.

Check out WGTS' website. People who live all around the world actually do listen to the station because they do an online stream. Locals who leave the area and want to stay connected listen. Troops stationed in Iraq listen. Non-Christians who work in hospitals listen.

Now that you know that DC is on the verge of losing its Christian music station, I ask you to do something about it. You don't have to live in the area (clearly). Visit this website to find out more information about what is going on, and what you can do to help.

Christians from all across the country (and around the world, for that matter) can really step in and give us a hand. The significance of this loss (selling the only Christian music station to the highest bidder in the nation's capital) is astounding.

Packing it up

I am a horrible blogger. I have one of those "sometimes it gets updated, sometimes it doesn't" blogs which are marginally better (barely) than those blogs that don't get updated, or were killed after about 2 posts but still linger online.

Anyway, after (once again) teetering on the edge of blog deletion, I have concluded that I will do the following: post a column type post once a week. I will shoot for Thursdays, but we'll see. The article topic will probably be fairly random, but all things considered, it will probably be best I go this route.

I do want a place to do some verbal expression, but I tend to stress over the fact that since I don't blog daily (like anyone with a blog really ought to), I just kind of put no effort into anything at all.

Blah blah blah.

Ok, so, see you back here next Thursday. That's the guarantee. I might post randomly at other times. Probably not. But Thursday. We'll see...

Back from Africa

Spent the past couple weeks in Ethiopia. Renewed blogging intensity forthcoming. Be prepared.

To Melinda Dolittle

Dear Melinda,

I was a huge fan of yours this season. From week one, I picked you as my favorite, and told people that you were amazing. I enjoyed all of your performances this season and even have some old episodes of American Idol saved on my DVR for random rewatching. Due to the reality of the show, I figured that despite your superior vocal ability, you would not be in the finals (the best singer never wins). Even so, I was disappointed to see you voted off last night.

I do have a plan for you, Melinda. Because I am well versed in all things music industry related (by which I simply mean I own many CDs, and 1 iTunes download) I feel that my advice would be extremely valuable to you. Here it is:

Release a gospel CD.

That's it. You already are a gospel fan, and we both like the same artists. I can't remember your list that you mentioned on an episode a while back, but I am certain it included Fred Hammond, my all time favorite. If you expressed interest, I'm sure you could get all the heavyweights in the gospel music industry to work with you on your debut album.

Do not release a "mainstream" album.

What I do suggest is that you work with your label on creating an upbeat, crossover song to launch your gospel career. Deliberately make it a song that can be played on any station - the equivalent of a "Shackles" by Mary Mary.

A failed secular release with a subsequent gospel turn can be disastrous (see, Studdard, Reuben). Keep it simple. You strike me as somebody who wouldn't quite fit in with the modern (i.e. gross) R&B scene anyway - your style is way too classic. The audience and the styles in gospel would be a perfect match for you and your voice.

Here's to an excellent debut album! I'll be waiting for it!

A fan,
Ryan

I'm back

I realize it has been nearly a month since my last post! Things had been going so well. However now I am (apparently) back to blogging.

Where was I?

Well, I was away for a week and a day. Went to the Grand Canyon, Vegas, and drove up the California coast in a convertible mustang.

I spent April 17 cursing at TurboTax for messing with me. I began a 1 man mission to bring the company down, but they went the extra mile (or seventeen) to remedy their disastrous tax day.

I finished up with my spring semester of seminary. I will be taking the summer off so I can go to Ethiopia and move out of my apartment.

Anyway, the reason for today's post is that the slowest hour of the day is 3:00. I have made the discovery earlier this week, and today, once again I am realizing it is true.

Jason Whitlock

I was watching the Today Show this morning and they spent about the first 20 minutes of the show on the Don Imus hysteria. Many different groups were used to provide differing viewpoints, from the guy who "mediated" the meeting between the Rutger's women's team and Imus, to a panel of maybe 20 average people who spent time in a room all yelling their opinions at the same time.

As they moved from group to group, there was one guy, who when they first showed him on camera, I sighed to myself because I figured I knew what his opinion would be (seeing as how everybody else they picked for the show provided the opinions they predictably would). But boy was I wrong. I had never heard of Jason Whitlock before today, but I was impressed at what he had to say.

Whitlock is a black guy and he called Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson domestic terrorists. Whoa.

Here's a snippet from an article by him I found today ("Imus isn’t the real bad guy")...

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

And one more ("Time for Jackson, Sharpton to Step Down")

Here's the opening of this one...

I’m calling for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the president and vice president of Black America, to step down.

Their leadership is stale. Their ideas are outdated. And they don’t give a damn about us.

Go and read those articles in their entirety - they are great.

My take on the whole situation is that it's the biggest media hyped joke EVER... well, since the last one anyway. The Rutger's team was robbed of the fact they made it to the national championship game? PLEASE. Like Whitlock said this morning, people are foolishly giving Don Imus this incredible amount of power that he actually doesn't have.

I really hope that there are more newsworthy items next week that we had this week. Really hope.



In case you can't see it too well, the "Breaking News" alert is that the Rutgers team has accepted Imus' apology. This is huge! HUGE I tell you!

It's all relative

When I was walking to Burger King to get my regular order (BK veggie combo with hot onions and onion rings, with raspberry iced tea to drink), I realized how chilly 50 degrees seemed to be. A couple weeks ago, I would have been thrilled at the thought of a 50 degree day and its warmth. However, today, I actually got a chill or two. I miss the warmth of days in the upper 70s already!

My most popular post

I can review stats for my blog, and I have learned my post from almost two years ago "Barbara Harrison Made a Funny" has been getting some business lately. A lot of business.

I was curious as to why that was the case, and after doing some investigation, I learned that recently Harrison uttered a bad word on the air without realizing she was on and the producers not catching it.

My post had nothing to do with that incident (obviously) but it was interesting to see the pickup. I guess people searched Google for her name and my site may have somehow came up.

Maybe this post will add to the hype. The more the merrier.

Greatest Contestant Ever

Get your own shirt today from www.bustedtees.com

As horribly as he sings (though I did see a YouTube clip of him recently where he isn't too bad), he clearly is the show this season. Can the vast majority of America even name any of the other contestants?

I've been a Melinda fan from when the top 12 females and top 12 guys were picked and have been following her ever since. But even then, this season has totally been a disappointment. If it wasn't for Sanjaya, there really wouldn't be anything to talk about - especially with Antonella being gone.

So I'd say this season has been saved by Sanjaya. I'm not hoping he wins or anything, but if it wasn't for him, it sure would be lamer. I actually look forward to what his next big thing is going to be.

Tea leaves

I love Thai iced tea. Back when we had horrible winter weather, on those occasionally warm days, I would take the couple block walk to this Thai restaurant in DC. Now, my trips are becoming more frequent as blistering cold winds are no longer an obstacle.

However, this addiction can become expensive, so I am trying to find where I can find some Thai tea leaves to make some Thai iced tea at home.

So yes, if you know where I can get some leaves to support my addiction, please email me.

Finally did it

Took the plunge today. For years now, I've been planning on getting an MP3 player for use in my car. I have a plan on buying an adapter so I can directly hook it up to my car (since I don't have a pre-existing audio input jack), but was waiting to implement it only after my CD changer performed its last spin. My CD player isn't officially broken, but its quirkier than ever in selecting which of my albums it wants to play.

I made one attempt in the MP3 world, purchasing a Creative Nomad player. However, due to my severe lack of patience, I quit the complicated process of converting all my CDs onto the player. I ultimately gave the Nomad away.

Then today, on a total spur of the moment purchase, I ended up picking up the black, 30gig iPod. I figure now with my Mac, the transfer process will be simpler and my patience bank will have enough in it to carry me through.

We'll see.

Final occupancy

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

Yesterday after my post about finally being settled in at the new apartment, I received notice that my apartment community will be demolished. Someone has purchased the land upon which the current buildings sit and feel the need to destroy them.

I have no idea what is going up in their place, but most likely some high priced apartments in the newly bustling, redeveloped downtown Silver Spring area. My stint in a hip part of town appears to be coming to an end - in 120 days.

I will be the final occupant in the life of my apartment.

This is quite funny simply because several months ago, our company moved to temporary office space while our building gets renovated. A part of the renovation included the demolition of the annex building - the exact location where I worked.

So at work, in the 60 years or so of the annex's life, I became the last person to work in my pseudo-office before it was destroyed. Now, I will be the last person to live in my current apartment in a building that I'd estimate to be about 40 to 50 years old, before it too becomes transformed into a pile of bricks.

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly this means.

Thank you, Sarah

A couple of months ago, I moved to a new place. Been settled in for a while now but one thing that reminds me that I am still relatively new to the place is the fact that the previous occupant of the apartment still has her mail sent there. I've lived many places in my life, and receiving the occasional piece of somebody else's mail to my address isn't uncommon. However, with Sarah's mail, its entirely different.

Normally, when you move somewhere new, you complete a change of address form and the post office delivers your mail to your new address. It's not a fool proof process as sometimes mail slips through the post office's filter, but its fairly accurate nonetheless.

But clearly, Sarah never filled out such a card.

On a daily basis, mail comes in for her. I got her W-2, mail from the MVA for her car registration, correspondence from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, personal letters hand addressed from people I imagine are her friends. I've received bills for bottled water, which I guess she had special delivered to the place.

I've also learned many things about Sarah.

She is an alumni of the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University. She works in the medical field in project management. She shops at Sam's Club and does care for her health.

Returning mail has been quite the process. I typically let it collect, and then go though it, returning to sender stuff that would be important to her. Hopefully these organizations will know that she hasn't been getting what they have been sending.

Anyway, the point of this story is this.

In the process of junking the junk mail, I have come across these apparently free magazines about project management. This week I have been reading them, and have come to recognize that professionally, this is actually the career path I should take. Based on life experience, project management is actually where I thrive and have a natural knack for.

Yes, I am in school working on getting my masters of divinity, and that is absolutely my life plan. However, aside from being a pastor, based on my seminary training thus far, and the pitfalls of ministry, I've learned that as an individual, I need to have a "backup career." I don't know where my first paying job in ministry will be. And who knows how stable a career path it will offer me.

However, with a focus on project management, and acquiring advanced certification, I will make myself marketable both in the "real world" of work, but it will serve as an awesome compliment to ministry. I'm pretty excited about the thought of it.

This is an option I didn't realize existed. I didn't know that the job of a "project manager" actually was an industry in and of itself. I wouldn't have realized this if the prior occupant of my apartment had filled out the card from the post office to have her mail forwarded to her.

For this I say: Thank you, Sarah.

My 43 Things

I happened to stumble upon the website 43things.com last week. I had never really checked out the site before, but after taking a few minutes to explore, I have decided it might be the greatest site ever.*

For those of you who don't know (although I might be in the vast minority of not knowing here as the site apparently peaked in popularity in 2005), it is a site where people list their list of individual life goals - some huge, some small - and by doing so, are able to find others who are in pursuit of the same thing.

I love lists. I love dreaming. I love goals. This one site takes care of all three.

So here's my list for your amusement.

*I'm looking for a category. Currently Google (and its whole network) rocks my world, and Wikipedia is my favorite information source.

Remember him?

Today the Washington Post has an article on Byron Mouton, a member of the 2002 national championship winning Maryland team.

During the summer of 2002, I was working at the University of Maryland as a community assistant at the summer housing service desk. Byron was staying on campus then, I guess as he was running out of NBA prospects. He always rode around campus on a shiny silver scooter - you know those kind that you stand on, and accelerate by kicking your foot on the pavement? Oh, the memories.

Anyway, the article talks about his nomadic life which began that summer and doesn't include the NBA. Poor guy. He was great.

The National Enquirer?

Today, during my daily news briefing, I came across this article in the Washington Times: It's pages over pundits for political news.

It basically says that for people who follow politics closely, their news medium of choice is the standard newspaper. (Come to think of it, how convenient for a newspaper to publish this story).

Anyway, I agreed with most of what the article had to say - the future of the newspaper may need to recognize the fact that many of the readers are politics junkies like myself.

However, near the end, the article describes what the most trusted news sources in America are:

The number of Americans with positive views of the overall press dropped last year, falling from 59 percent in February to 48 percent by July. Among 20 major news organizations, few escaped a decline in credibility ratings: Only Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the "NewsHour" on PBS, People magazine, the National Enquirer and smaller local papers maintained the steady trust of readers and viewers.

Umm... the National Enquirer as a trusted source? If you ask me, if I were at Fox News or the Wall Street Journal, I'd be kind of embarrassed to know who else shares the same category of news trustworthy that I do.

A Sweeping Victory!

Last night's sweep of Duke this season was amazing. Go Terps!

Let's Go MARYLAND!!

What an awesome game yesterday! NCAA tournament, here we come! Final Four, baby!

Easy-Going Does It

A funny thing happend on the way home last night....

The past week has been quite traumatic in my computer life. A week ago today, I was sitting at my desk, checked some email, and got up to get a glass of ice water as I was about to begin watching my DVD lectures for the evening.

I didn't realize it, but the power cord was wrapped around my shoe, and with one simple move, my Apple 17" G4 PowerBook crashed to the hardwood floor, breaking 75% of the viewable screen.

After spending quite some time writhing in agony, and getting some assistance from my main main, a replacement screen was eventually ordered, and all would hopefully soon be well.

So last night, we began the computer repair process taking apart my constant life companion only to discover that the screen that we purchased, while made specifically for my make and model, didn't meet the "product number" requirement, so no replacement was made (that complete adventure will be blogged about in the future... I'll end it at that for today's purposes).

So last night, about 1:30 AM, I am driving home through the boonies of Montgomery County at a rapid, open road rate. Some time into the journey, I realize that I have a car on my tail, and upon closer inspection, I realized that it was in fact a state trooper behind me. At this point, I'm doing 60 in a 30, and feeling that it was already too late to avoid the inevitable stop, I didn't brake, but eased off on the gas slowly slowing down.

The moment I hit 40 miles per hour, the flashers come on and I pull off to the side of the road.

Dreading what was forthcoming, visions of my last ticket (a $523 doozy two years ago) came to me. The officer hopped out of his car relatively quickly and come to my side. He asked me for my license and registration, to which I complied.

He had his flashlight pointed at me, and using the illumination from it, I fingered through 4 different registration cards (I replaced my original boring plates with cool Maryland tags, and had one renewal since I got the car...and I just saved the useless, invalid ones just to complicate situations like this). As it took me a minute to find the right one, the officer asks me, "Does your car have interior lighting?" Me first analyzing his question as if "interior lighting" was some sort of criminal activity I was partaking in. After I affirmatively answered his question, he replied, "So use it."

Well said.

So I turn on my interior lights, and while locating the correct card, he looks at my gas gauge and remarks, "I know why you were going fast! You were running out of gas!"

I wisely agreed with his assessment of the situation. He then asked me where I planned on filling up my tank. I had no idea where the next station was, being out in the boonies and all, and he told me where I could find one. He then took my license and registration and told me he would follow me to the gas station and would let me know there "what he decided to do with me."

While filling my tank, the officer and I had a pleasant conversation. He asked me where I was headed, questioned the out of date address I had on my license, and asked my why I hadn't filled up at the outset of my journey.

After successfully replying to all his queries, we had a conversation about my computer breakage incident, the fact that a unsuccessful repair attempt had been made, and his personal doubts about the chances of returnability of items on EBay.

We even talked about religion.

He also reminded me about the 2 points I had on my drivers license which are set to expire in June.

At the end of our chat, he reminded me to be safe when I was driving, so as to not kill myself or another driver. He told me he didn't want to give me more points, and to make sure I filled up my gas tank appropriately. He told me he tries to keep his tank at a quarter tank at minimum, and that he usually tries to keep it above a half a tank in case he is called on a chase.

He let me go without a warning, without a ticket.

I am one lucky guy.