Yep my Dad, Spiderdroid, my nephew and myself sure had fun at the Sycamore Speedway. Thanks to my SIL for being the founder of the feast of fast. Next time need to bring mosquito spray and ear plugs. I think my MIL wants to go to the Demolition Derby next month.
Summer has many great traditions and events. From outdoor movies (which sadly we did not partake of this year) to weekend getaways, our summers are filled with some great activities. Some are relatively new, like home school baseball on Thursday nights and some have been going on for years, like my sister and her kids' annual visit from D.C. to the old homestead. Last year a new summer tradition started which starts again today. Allen Levi will release a new song on his blog today (http://www.allenlevi.wordpress.com/) and continue to release a new song each day until Sunday. Yep 7 songs in 7 days. You can also link to the blog from his web site http://www.allenlevi.com/.
Now wait just a minute, you might be saying who is Allen Levi and what kind of music does he perform?
This video may begin to answer those questions.
I am not sure if I have posted about Allen before. I know I have periodically put up links to his website and blog before. I met Allen about 15 years ago when I was living in South Carolina. He performed concerts at the church I was attending 2 years in a row. He was in the early years of his transition from full time lawyer to full time singer.
Allen quickly became of my favorite musicians. He is a prolific song writer/story teller who at both of those concerts sang songs he had written only hours earlier. Unlike Bebo Norman who is featured with Allen in the above video, Allen has not become a Contemporary Christian Music star. I am not sure this was his intention.
A good # of Allen's concerts are played at Young Life (A Christian parachurch youth ministry) camps and training events. He also plays churches like the concert I saw him at. He also has performed at many more intimate venues. He told me once he even plays at birthday parties. I found this out first hand in 2004 when Amy flew him from Georgia to Illinois for my surprise 40th birthday party.
I reviewed all of the songs Allen played last August in preparation for this week. I thought I would link one up here to give you an idea of his music. The problem is they were all awesome and I had hard time deciding which one to choose. You can find them all by clicking here.
If I had to choose one I would choose Proposal (A Love Song). I chose this one because a) I like the premise of a proposal song following the advice Elisabeth Elliot's father had for her brothers: Never tell a girl you love her until you are ready to propose. and b) because I once told a girl I loved her in a song and then proposed in the same song. (She said "sure" btw.)
The indecision in picking 1 song is understandable as I vacillate easily when trying to determine which of Allen's songs is my favorite. Yesterday it was A Frazier Fir in Florida from that album I bought 15 years ago. Today it's back to Love to Give Away, a beautiful song about his singleness. I am sure after this week I will (and hopefully you too) will have some new gems to choose from.
I could probably go on and on about Allen, but instead I will let his music speak for himself. Not only is he my featured blog this week, he is also listed in my blog roll. Give him a listen, and a read, as his song explanations are often as poignant as the songs themselves. Who knows? maybe he will play at your surprise birthday party as well.
This blog has not been immune, at times, to instead of blogging about home schooling or crazy family members or first place baseball teams, to occasionally just blog about blogging. This label nostalgia is a pretty good example. Last weekend when I posted that I had not posted for awhile is another.
Over the 20 months Home School Dad has been the blog sensation sweeping the nation I have made a few observations about blogging. I'd like to share a few here.
1) You could always spend more time blogging. Early on I became overwhelmed with how much time I could pour into the blog-o-sphere. But no matter how much you spend, it seems like you could always spend more. Not letting blogging consume me was a hard calf to corral the first 6-8 months. It is now pretty easy to not get swept up out of control. This balance was hard to come by but it is certainly something I will want to pass on to the blogging class I teach this fall.
2) Some ideas just don't work. I sometimes get an awesome idea for a post. Sometimes it's just an excellent title. Often times, these ideas and titles pretty much write themselves into epic blog posts. Other times, no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring the idea home. This is where my wife/editor is so helpful. She'll read it and say "I have no idea where you are going with this." Sometimes I can salvage the idea, but every once in a while that dog will just not hunt. When that is the case, the best strategy is just to let the idea go.
3) Some ideas aren't worth the work. In my first few months of blogging, I used to look back at my previous months worth of posts, choose the 5 I liked best and put them in a box in my blog called Dave's fave five. This became an incredibly arduous process. First of all, it was sometimes hard to choose the 5 best because I thought everything was great. Other months I thought nothing was any good. It usually depended on whether I had a nap or not. Then after I decided on the 5, I had to link them and label them and mark them with D and put them in a blog for David and me. By the time I got it all done it was about time to do the thing over again. Part of running an effective blog is to know when to go the extra mile and when to pull the plug. A number of months ago I scrubbed all references to Dave's fave five and I've never looked back.
So from time to time I am going to still blog about blogging, but like they say at the Porcupine Salesmen Convention: Don't ignore what got you here, porcupines and more porcupines! And my porcupines are definitely home schooling and being crazy. Two porcupines that I know a lot about.
And they're off!
Just a fun night at the races. 
