As usual, I've had a rather "thoughtful" day. More than anything, it's been a day of closure. I used to play drums with a singer/songwriter here in Madison, WI. and we had a promising band going for some time. However, he ran off to Guatemala to marry the woman that he met during his time as a Mormon missionary in the early-00's (can we say "early-zeros" yet? I mean, it is "twenty o' four") for a solid three month period. Before that, we cut a solid demo and were poised to "take over the world" with our rock (which we referred to as "progressive pop;" sort of Rush meets Savage Garden if you can imagine that combo). Well, just when we were about to work on really getting a following around town, he would take off again to Guatemala! I began to get so frustrated with this that I finally decided to pursue my own project. My own project's a whole other story, but the point is that I made the decision to stop playing with him in December of 2003, leading to my story tonight:

Our former second guitarist brought us all together this evening for an impromptu unplugged jam at a coffee shop. We played acoustic renditions of the material that we used to play (rather improvised ones at that; I used a djembe drum to "tap out" parts based around my memory of my drum set parts) and it was a pleasant experience. No attempt was made to "get the band back together" as everyone's happily doing their own thing now and I'm focused on my own project. I felt a real sense of closure though as I was driving home, but I had to do it in silence; no CD or radio. The experience prompted me to think about how life is. I've observed that, often times, life is simply a series of unfulfilled promises and ambitions. I concluded that what makes life so sweet at times and joyful when success finally comes are those unfulfilled promises and ambitions. What's good without bad? Success without failure? It's these antitheses--and mostly antitheses--that appear to make life such a grand experience.

Wow--did I get pretty Platonist with that one?

...and others for that matter, I think I'll finally do something with my Journal (Phantom Savage will be happy too!).

Well, I'm finally done with finishing my tracks in the studio. I'm about 2 weeks away from finishing my official site so that I can have my music shopped with Dreamworks Records!

I'm also excited about The Passion of the Christ. These are very interesting times in light of End Time prophecy; we'll see what happens--only time will tell if the man that both Christians and Muslims believe will return will actually return. I'm open to the idea that it could happen in my physical lifetime. With all of the things happening since 9/11 and with this situation in the Middle East, to me, it's quite startling and worth investigating from a Biblical standpoint. It seems silly to me that all of the things that happen in the physical world are not somehow influenced by a realm beyond the senses.

Anyway, pray that U2 will finally release an album before Jesus actually returns!

Bono: don't make me go the Vatican and get the Pope to call you up and tell you, Edge, Larry, and Adam to get it done already!