MEET TED

"Ahem. Attention please. I'd like to introduce to you to TED."

TED wants to meet you too.

If you've already met TED, then you know the value of the meeting.

Meet TED here.

For those of you who want to cut to the chase right away, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and it is a consortium and "Brain Trust" of the world's greatest thinkers and innovators in a broad range of fields. Each year great thinkers are asked to give a TED Talk which is an 18 minute speech on their specialty/passion. The results have been pretty amazing.

Here is a highlight reel of the Top 10 TED Talk's from 2006-2008:
http://www.ted.com/talks/top10

I discovered TED while doing some educational research on thinking. It's one of the top websites in the nation, but I had never heard of it before yesterday.

Please note, though: I do not know TED's political leaning, and I do not subscribe to Al Gore's discourse, but I do know that, aside from his talk, the information from the other speakers is fabulous. Don't let your political feelings blur the value of this website. It's about innovation in so many areas, and we all need to be inspired!

You simply MUST check it out: http://www.ted.com/talks/top10

LIKE THE MUSIC?

Finally!

I added a free music Playlist to my blog here.

What do you think?

The first song up is one you may not be familiar with, but Misty Edwards is a phenomenal worshipper and psalmist. It takes a few seconds for the song to come up, but it is well worth it to listen.

Another artist I'm loving is Robin Thicke. He is R&B and soul/jazz. He isn't a Christian artist like Misty, but his song "Lost Without You" and his newest album and first song "Magic" are just so very smooth. They go down so nicely. : )

Feel free to link over and make a Playlist for yourself if you like. It's easy and free.

I also have posted a few new pictures of me and Riley on here. Kinda neat, I thought.

I think I've broken a record for number of posts in a short amount of time. That's not usually me. I usually don't post this often. I'll enjoy it while I can. : )

Hope all is well with everyone and that your summer is simply smashing (in a good way!)!

HAPPY FOURTH of JULY!

Happy Fourth of July, Everyone!

By the way, I just added three new posts, so feel free to go back a few posts. : )

YES, I DID!

I did something I haven't done in years.

Uh-huh.

I went to a live concert tonight. LOL!

Maybe that isn't a big deal to you guys, but I haven't been to a live concert since I saw Sade and Basia back in the 90s.

Oh, I have gone to a few mega Christian conferences/services and Contemporary Christian music venues since then, but I haven't been to a bonafide popular or "secular" (if you want to call it that for lack of a better word) music concert since, like, 1994.

Who did I see and where did I go, you ask?

First let me say that I got to go free. My neighbor surprised me with the gift and blessing of a free ticket. She and another friend were going, and she wanted me to come too! How nice!

We saw Edwin McCain at the House of Blues here in Myrtle Beach. . .and he was GREAT!

He is really good in concert. Very acoustic and soulful.

He is known for "Love Suicide" and "Could Not Ask for More." Those songs have really become classics.

Go see him if you get a chance. :)

I'm trying to post pictures from my cell phone, but my cell phone is blocking my attempts to e-mail the photos from the concert to my e-mail address. If I can get them to finally send, I will post my pictures of Edwin McCain and the concert on this blog. My friends and I were front and center. I literally could have reached out to touch him (not that I wanted to) we were that close.

If I can't get the pictures to post, I'll go to YouTube or MySpace and post a video or live concert footage from there.

The concert was great, and I loved going! Many thanks to M for the ticket!

"Love Suicide" is above at the beginning of this post. Below is "Could Not Ask for More" (Live footage from 2006 not last night - His hair is short now, and he is thinner.) followed by "Take Me" which is more live footage from Edwin McCain last year at The House of Blues here in MB:





[On a side note: I'm having issues all the way around with posting pictures here at Blogger. It is VERY, VERY frustrating. My own computer is blocking my attempts on Blogger to post. In order to get the previous pictures of my gorgeous friend to post, I had to write and post that blog from another computer. That's the pits. Anyone have an idea why I'm having trouble with posting pictures?]

MY LOVELY, LOVELY FRIEND

I just have to take a moment to gawk at how gorgeous my dear friend is. I just saw these new pictures of her, and once again, I am in awe of her beauty.

I'll even devote this post to just commenting on how simply beautiful, strong, compassionate, and deeply spiritual she is.

I know all this because we've been friends for many years now. I know the fruits of her character and work.

I've always known her to be beautiful.

Heck, there's not a time that we'd go out that some woman or man (mostly women, interestingly) would comment on how gorgeous she is. The men don't always speak up like the women, but they always turn their heads and stare. They gawk too.

She gets compared to Angelina Jolie frequently. I see some Julia Roberts there myself, but, really, she's my dearest friend, so they look like her to me. : )

The funniest part of the whole scenario has always been that she is a minister - and a passionate and fiery one at that! She is so down-to-earth and not about "all the looks" which makes her even more beautiful. She's not high maintenance either. She's also married, so, sorry, Guys.

We live in different states now since I moved to the beach three years ago, but we have made time to see one another each year (sometimes twice) and we talk and e-mail regularly. It is always wonderful when we're together. Always.

I really love her deeply. She is a true friend and a real gift from God. Truly.

She doesn't even know that I'm thinking about her right now and that I wrote this post admiring her physical, emotional, and spiritual beauty, but I know. . .

And now you do too. : )

TROUBLING

This is something I wish I wasn't writing about, but I'm also very thankful that nothing serious came from it.

I do think, however, that it is truly a comment on our culture and "times."

On Tuesday I was returning to the high school where I teach from a morning Teacher Training Session at our large District Office across the county. I was turning right with the right-of-way at a traffic light in the town where I teach.

A middle-aged man (30s/40s) in a baseball cap in a large, older truck turned in front of me while I was turning. He forced his way into the lane and not only nearly hit me, but he also practically side-swiped the whole driver side of my car.

I honked.

That is all I did. I honked. I didn't flip him off (not that I would anyway). I didn't curse at him.

I just honked.

The next thing I know, the man slammed on his brakes, threw his truck into park, opened his truck door, got out of the vehicle, and started walking toward me.

This is all in the middle of downtown on a two-lane city street with cars all around.

I knew what was going to happen next. I knew he was going to beat me up. I knew he was coming to have a physical altercation with me.

I'll be honest. I was scared. He looked like a rough red neck, and I looked like easy prey.

I started praying in tongues under my breath, because I thought to myself that I'm either going to get beat up or shot.

I don't know what happened next, but when he got to my car door rolling his sleeves up and looking furious, he stopped, paused, looked in my back seat, said he hadn't seen my car turning (not true), turned around, and walked back to his truck.

That was it.

I've never been so thankful. . .

And I've never been so confused about two things:

(1) What did he see in my backseat? An angel? A large man? (Really, I don't know, but I don't care, because I do believe God was looking out for me somehow and some way. I'm happy too that my face didn't get rearranged.)

(2) Can a driver not honk at another driver who was in the wrong and nearly caused a serious accident for fear of road rage? What has our society come to that a "honk" entitles another person to threaten someone? Why in the heck is everyone so ready to fight and come to blows over anything and everything? I'm just so confused and still a little scared about this.

Since Tuesday, I have thought a great deal about this situation.

I am so thankful for God's protection, but I'm also a little scared about the quickness of people's rage.

Are we all on the brink of breaking?

Here in my area two weeks ago, three high school students were arrested for shooting a college student down at a beach house over an argument over a parking spot.

Yes. Over a parking spot.

Four promising young lives ruined OVER A PARKING SPOT.

Pardon me while I scratch my head.

MORE SEXY MEN

All right, all right.

You called me on my previous post which said "Sexy Men," and I only showed you one, but what a "one" that was. Yum. Yum. Go back one post to see those delicious pictures of Michael C. Hall.

The pictures above are more men who I think rank right up there as waaaaaay sexy. I can't put one finger on what makes them so "sexy" to me, but there is this general quality that makes them incredibly gorgeous, intelligent, confident, and seemingly accessible all at the same time.

Their "sexiness" is in no particular order. LOL!

** Pierce Brosnan (played Remington Steele and James Bond in previous years

** Tom Welling (plays Clark Kent on CW's "Smallville")

** John Krasinski (plays Jim Halpert on NBC's "The Office")

** Josh Holloway (plays Sawyer on ABC's "Lost")

** Patrick Dempsey (I've loved his quirky sexiness since back in his 80's films and long before "Grey's Anatomy").

** John Schneider (played Bo Duke on "The Dukes of Hazzard" and Jonathan Kent on "Smallville" and he is STILL sexy after all these years - and it's even sexier that he is still with his long-time wife!)