Glacier National Park

After church tonight, Jenna and I are heading up to visit Mark and Kay Johnson and then heading out west to spend some time camping in Glacier National Park. We are extremely excited. It is such a beautiful place and will be nice to get away from some of the busyness of life and relax in the mountains. We will also be spending some time with Kevin and Heidi and the boys, and so that will be fun as well. I hope to be able to post some pics along the way, but we’ll see. Otherwise I will when we get back. Pray for safe travels and that we can manage to stay away from the bear since it is their home after all and we are just visiting.

On a totally different subject, I recently got the solo album from Glen Hansard, who is the singer/songwriter for The Frames”. The cd is entitled the “swell season” and I would highly recommend it. I recorded one of the songs off of this cd for the fun of it and I really like how it turned out. Click on the link to hear it or download it.

Falling Slowly

Let me know what you think.

Starbury

Last night I decided to join the Starbury movement. For those of you that don’t know about it, basically, Stephon Marbury decided to create a line of shoes that cost only 14.98 per pair. It started out as just basketball shoes, but now there are several styles. He even wears his shoes on coart along with Ben Wallace and a few others. Suposedly, they are just as good as expensive shoes, but without the price tag. The whole point was to create a quality shoe that everyone can afford. So, I decided to pick up a pair mainly because I needed some shoes and they are only 14.98. I got the “cyclone II” style in brown/black/tan. they are really quite comfy and have that classic old school “new balance 574″ look to them. I have had 3 pairs of New Balance 574’s so they are kind of the standard of measurement for me as to how these shoes feel and hold up. So far so good, but it is the first day, so we will see how long they last.

Malian Tea

Last night, after our worship gathering and a trip to Pier 500 for appetizers, we decided to go back to our house for some additional hanging out. Our first plan was to have a fire and sit around, but it was a bit warm for that, so we decided instead to just hang out without the fire. Then we thought that it would be a good night to start drinking some Malian Tea. So, I busted out the tea pots and the tea and Mark Fisk and I got to work brewing the tea.

This tea seems as common as the dust in Mali, and is often had 3 times during the day, and each time consists of three rounds. The first is very strong (“as bitter as death”), the second is slightly sweetened (“just like life”), and the third is well sugared (“as sweet as love”). The process of making it is probably just as important as the tea itself.

The process goes a little bit like this…

• Take your time. If you’re in a rush, then making tea will drive you nuts. Kick back into African time – perhaps by pretending that you’re waiting for a bus to fill up – and slow down your actions. Making tea is a ponderous, plodding process, and if you try to rush it, it will simply find a way of forcing you to slow down. Relax, take a deep breath, and procrastinate.
• You now need to light your charcoal burner. The charcoal sits in the top in the shallow bowl, so the wind can blow through the various holes to keep it red hot; stack some charcoal on the top, slap in some paper impregnated with lighter fuel, and light it up like a barbecue. If you’re in the desert and don’t have a stove, a small wood fire will suffice.
• Wait for the coals to start glowing, while fanning the stove with a flag-shaped fan made from weaved grass. If you’re feeling efficient you can start preparing the teapot at this stage, but feel free to sit around doing nothing while the fire settles, if you prefer. There’s no rush, after all.
• Once the coals are glowing red, you need to fish out your teapot. This all-metal affair, normally painted, is shaped like a normal round teapot, with a long spout, a hinged lid on top and a handle at the opposite side to the spout. Put a heap of tea leaves into the pot, along with a little water, and pop it on the stove, directly onto the coals. The tea you choose depends on who you are; It’s up to you, really; There are no rules.
• Soon enough the water starts to boil and froth out of the teapot’s spout, and this is a sign to start brewing the tea. Fish out up to three glasses, each of them the size of a shot glass, and start the concoction process. Pour water into one glass, filling it right to the top, and tip this into the pot. Do this three times, put the teapot back on the coals, and if you’re looking for something else to do, rinse the glasses in water, making sure you don’t waste more water than you have to. This is the desert; water is precious.
• It won’t be long before the pot is boiling again, spurting steam out of the spout and quite possibly bubbling around the sides of the lid. Pour white sugar into one glass, filling it right to the top, and tip the sugar into the pot. Fill this glass with tea from the pot, starting to pour from a low height and raising the teapot as high as you can before bringing it low again as the glass fills, and take the glass and pour it back into the teapot with a flick of the wrist. Repeat.
• And repeat. And repeat. This part of the process can go on for ages, with some tea pourer’s pouring and tipping 20 or 30 times to get the tea to the right strength. When you think your tea is ready, leave a little bit in the glass and taste it; if you want your tea to be stronger, or you want it sweeter, then keep on pouring or adding sugar as required.
• If, however, the tea is ready, fill the glasses with the same high-pouring action, so each glass gets a good frothy head on it, and pass them round. You should get three glasses from each pot, and it’s important that they’re all drunk; if there are two of you, pour a glass for your guest, then another one for them, and then one for yourself.
• Drink the tea in short slurping sips. It won’t be too hot to drink, as all the pouring will have cooled it down to a drinkable temperature, and before you know it, it’ll be gone. And then it’s probably time for another pot, if you have time… which you almost certainly do.

It was a good time to enjoy some tea together and teach a few others about the ritual of the tea. It got me excited to go back to Africa and continue to learn how to slow down. I hope we can make the tea brewing a regular part of our lives as it causes you to sit and wait and just share life together for a moment. Our first time was a success, and the tea turned out quite good.

Markson A/E #1 (again)

I decided to do another recording with my home-made guitar. This time, It features the electric portion of the guitar. If you have no Idea what i am talking about, I explain the guitar in an earlier blog post HERE. This recording is a song from the band that I am in, “Montreal”. It is a song called “Plate Glass Beauty”. I didn’t quite get the tone I wanted due to the fact that in order to really get the best tone, I would have to crank my amp quite loud and I am not sure my neighbors would appreciate that. But I still think it sounds pretty good considering I recorded it in about an hour from start to finish including vocals and editing and all that. If you want to give it a listen, click on thie link:

Plate Glass Beauty

If you want to listen to the earlier recording of Ray LaMontagne’s song called “Empty”.

Empty

Thanks for listening and let me know what you think.

music

It has been quite a while since I’ve updated my “current listening” sidebar. This is not because i haven’t been listening to music. In fact, it is quite the opposite. So i thought I would let you know what I have been pumping into my ipod as of late. I am not saying that these are the best albums in the world, but simply what I have been listening to lately. Check them out and let me know what you think. Also, I am always up for suggestions on cd’s to check out. If you are wanting to only check out a couple of these, let me point you to my favorites. The new wilco album is a MUST!!! I will just say that off the bat even though it doesn’t actually come out till next week. (you can listen to it on their website) Also, the new Andrew Bird album and the latest from the Cold War Kids is quite good. Ok, who am I kidding, these are all really good albums for different reasons. Check them out. By the way, this is the model Ipod I have. 40gb…black & white…it’s still kicking even though it does act up from time to time. No need to get a new one…yet. (although it is completely full!!!)

logo

So far, Sanctuary has been without a logo or a “branding” so to speak. That is going to change. Not because we have to or feel that we are supposed to market ourselves, but because we want to have a sign made, do some print media with our info, and for future items that we may want. It is also because we would like to have some sort of symbol that becomes familiar and pleasing to the eye to our committed community and the community we are surrounded by. I don’t think it will make or break us, but as someone who is very visual and artistic, those things matter to me and I tend to judge companies/churches/organizations on their appearance. That can be many things such as a website, an advertisement, product display or packaging, and logo. Now, I wish I didn’t do this, but first impressions make a big deal in this fast paced life.

So, I am trying to come up with something. I hesitate in this whole thing because i just don’t always like the idea of acting/thinking like a company in any way, but I think it will be a good thing to come up with a simple effective symbol/logo that we can put on various media.

The reason I write this post is simply to see if anyone has any ideas. If you don’t know what we are all about and who we are, go to our website and just read some of the info on there. Then tell me your thoughts. It doesn’t even have to be a full concept, just even an abstract idea or word that pops into your mind when you think about Sanctuary. It will help me to think outside of my own brain and get input from people that think differently than I do. Then I can take those ideas and start coming up with some initial designs.

Please, comment or email me if you have anything to add to my list of words/ideas of who we are and what we are all about.