Thriller Video

Here is the Thriller video from the Midtown Volunteer Appreciation Night, as promised!

If you have never seen the full-length original by Michael Jackson, you should absolutely check it out. (it is slightly better than the one above)

Decorating Tip

Here’s another random and somewhat funny thing I saw in a home during a home inspection. Talk about decorating with what you have laying around the house….

Play By Play

Starting Saturday morning…..

10:00 am – Got a new tire put on my truck (from flat tire earlier in the week)

12:00 pm – Meeting for Midtown Volunteer Appreciation Night

2:00 pm – Drove to Greenville to pick up my friend Rhonda and go see Wicked in Charlotte

4:00 pm – Left Greenville, headed to Charlotte

5:30 pm – Dinner at Cabo Fish Taco (awesome)

6:45 pm – Truck begins having electrical problems (not awesome)

7:15 pm – Pulled into Auto Zone near the theater, truck died

7:35 pm – Paid for new battery, left truck for Auto Zone employee to install battery, walked to theater

8:00 pm – Wicked (more to come on the show later)

11:00 pm – Walked to Auto Zone, truck started but was still having issues

11:05 pm – Called my friend Blackwell who lives in Charlotte for help

11:30 pm – Arrived at Blackwell’s house

12:00 am – Left truck at Blackwell’s and borrowed his truck to take Rhonda back to Greenville

1:30 am – Dropped off Rhonda

1:45 am – Crashed at Mom and Dad’s house

9:00 am – Drove back to Charlotte (still wearing clothes from last night)

11:00 am – Removed alternator and new battery from truck, went back to Auto Zone

1:00 pm – Installed new alternator and old battery

2:45 pm – Left Charlotte and drove to the SC State Museum for church

4:45 pm – Sound check (still wearing same clothes)

5:30 pm – Worship Gathering

7:15 pm – Worship Gathering

9:00 pm – Worship Gathering

10:15 pm – Packed up equipment

11:00 pm – Headed to Waffle House

12:15 pm – Back home at last! (finally showered and changed clothes!)

At this rate, this could be an interesting week…..

Weak Sauce

At Dustin’s life group a few weeks ago:

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Kakaras to Dustin: Man, I had no idea you were so into chick flicks.
Dustin: Huh?
Kakaras: You know, all the ones you have been watching recently.
Dustin: What are you talking about?
Allen: (giggle) You wrote all about it on your blog.
Dustin: No I didn’t.
Kakaras and Allen: (laughing now) Yes, you wrote a whole post about all the chick flicks that you have been watching late at night after Renie goes to bed….

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I was reading Dustin’s blog a few weeks ago and realized that he had not logged out from his VOX account on my laptop. Oh lucky day! Of course I had to take advantage of such an opportunity and write a post for him confessing his little late night obsession with chick flicks. The post stayed up all day and he never realized it till the guys brought it up at his life group. Good stuff! The best part of the story; his blog had over 70 hits that day!

So tonight while some people were watching a movie at my house, Dustin decided to try and pay me back by getting on my laptop and writing a post for me. (Apparently I enjoyed the movie Sleepless In Seattle 3 times today.) All I have to say is that is some pretty weak sauce from Mr. Willis. He should take some prank pointers from the Midtown creativity team during their Tuesday meetings. Oh wait, that wouldn’t work. I happen to be on that team….

Why Music is Better Than Sports

I skipped the Baumer show tonight to watch the Tigers play in the NCAA basketball tournament. Bad decision. So I came up with this list.

Why Music is Better Than Sports:

1. With music everybody wins
2. Music does not make you sad more than it makes you happy
3. Referees don’t ruin a big concert
4. There are very few music injuries
5. Music does not make you a nervous wreck every time you listen to it
6. There are no “music talk” radio stations where people who know nothing about music talk about it all day long
7. Music doesn’t make you mad at your friends
8. Music does not leave you with a knot in your stomach
9. You don’t have to wait till next year
10. Music goes with anything
11. Dancing
12. Romance
13. Music can have depth and meaning
14. And of course, most importantly….. women love musicians!

March Madness

The Midtown staff is terrible at basketball. Shockingly so. This past Tuesday we got together for our monthly “staff” meeting. (“staff” being a loose term itself, since most of us are either volunteer or bi, tri, or even quad-vocational) We had a great dinner together and productive meeting, but things went downhill fast when we all went to play basketball afterward. I am glad there was some team-building and exercise value to it, because that’s about all it was! Aside from a few bright spots, (Dustin, Adam, and Jay) the rest of what happened on the court barely resembled the game that everyone is watching on tv this time of year! As multi-talented as most of the guys are, you would think that we could hold together a respectable looking game, but that was not the case. Maybe we should have a guitar-hero competition at our next staff meeting….

Inspections

Going through people’s homes from top to bottom every day for a living, I see some pretty strange things. Some are related to the actual issues that it is my job to find, and others are not. Of the former, sometimes I find a really unusual problem in a house or maybe a crazy homemade “repair” job. But the latter category is usually much more entertaining. I am constantly reminded (in often humorous ways) about how God makes us so diverse. So from now on whenever I run across one of those things that makes me laugh, I am going to pass it on to you. Here is the first one….

No, its not a plasma screen. Just a backlit picture of some tropical beach. I looked to see if it had a speaker that played ocean sounds or music, but couldn’t find one…..

New Look and Location

Technical “Support”: Technical support, how may I help you?

Me: I am having some trouble with my site. It is not loading properly for me and several other people, and the admin section is periodically not working either.

Technical “Support”: Hold on, let me take a look at it. (long pause) I’m sorry, Mr. Cunningham. It seems to be working fine on our end.

Me: Well, the site has been acting up for several months now. This is the 4th time I have called, and it always seems to be working fine on your end. Do you have any idea what could cause things not to work properly for other users?

Technical “Support”: No, like I said it seems to be working fine on our end.

Me: (getting very annoyed) Well, isn’t that the point of hosting websites, that the sites are available to the rest of the world and not just your company?

Technical “Support”: I understand your frustration, I just don’t know what to tell you. Your site is working fine on my computer.

Me: Well, I hope that my blog is entertaining and informative for your company, since they are the only people who can see it….

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….. and now you know why my blog has a new look all of a sudden! Technology is great when it is working, but really sucks when it is not. So…I have temporarily moved my blog to another host. (which was a pain to do) It doesn’t give me much flexibility as far as the design and navigation, but at least it works. Now off to the things I was actually planning on doing today……

Cornhole Song?

For all you “cornholers” out there, this video is for you…..

75 Dollar Breakfast

This weekend I got to spend some time in the upstate, which is always good. Saturday I went to the Clemson/Wake Forest game with dad and Saturday night I got to see Nickel Creek at the Handlebar. (both were great) The title of this blog comes from Sunday morning when I went to breakfast with a friend at the IHOP on Wade Hampton Boulevard. A few minutes after sitting down and ordering our food, a waiter came around and asked if anyone was driving a Toyota Camry, because it was getting towed. I of course do not drive a Camry, but I glanced out the window anyway and to my surprise my truck was gone! Apparently it had already been towed before the Camry. (with no waiter-announcement) Bummer, huh? Turns out there is an area of the parking lot that is not actually IHOP’s, but an adjacent business’s. The no parking signs are posted pretty well, but when I pulled in there were 4 other cars parked there and I did not see them. Anyway – I usually take these kind of things in stride and was able to laugh about the whole thing and enjoy my now very expensive chocolate-chip pancakes. Fortunately another friend of mine was at the IHOP and offered to take us to the towing lot. So much for an inexpensive weekend in the upstate……