Favorite Five for the Day

1. Mumford and Sons “The Cave”

2.Santogold “Les Artistes”

3. Cage the Elephant “Ain’t no rest for the wicked”

4. Bon Iver “Skinny Love”

5. The Civil Wars “Poison and Wine”

Enjoy.

Live 100.5 is no more. Big Mistake.

About a year and a half ago, I heard from a friend about a new radio station called Live 100.5, so I gave it a listen.  I loved it.  Then they started playing too many requests of overplayed songs and stuff that I considered like that of Nickelback.  For the record, I can’t stand nickelback’s sound.

I stopped listening.  Then, I moved to Tuscaloosa and started listening to 100.5 again after my iPod was stolen out of my car.  They cheered me up!  They were playing great music again.  I found out about so many artists that I am now a big fan of.  Santogold, Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons just to name a few.  Reg and Chris were the two guys that kept my drives home to and from work sane.

I heard that they were now changing it to a talk radio station.  I don’t care who is talking on the radio, I would rather listen to music.  Good music at that, and the only station that played good music in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa was Live 100.5.

Thanks Live 100.5 for the free tickets that I won twice on your shows.  Thanks for the good music.

The problem with pain

Something needs to be said about how good can grow out of something so horrible and terrifying, that it chills you to the bone.

Over 7 months ago my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  I’m not going to lie, it hit me pretty hard.  I stopped caring for myself, my friends, and my grades.  I just didn’t care about anything.  I was pissed.  How the hell could God let something like this happen?  My mother, who has done nothing but care for me, my sister, and my Dad for every second of every day of her life was diagnosed with cancer.  I like to think I know my mother more than the average person and one thing I can tell you is that she is genuine.  She legitimately cares for her family and friends more than anybody I know.  I am a momma’s boy and I am proud to be the son of my mother.

She underwent chemo for about 5 months.  She lost her hair, became extremely fatigued, remained nauseated for most of the time she was awake and was in the hospital for 5 hours at a time when she had to go.  She underwent two surgeries, took hundreds of pills, and had hundreds of blood tests.  I would call her everyday to ask her how she felt and she always said, “I feel ok”.  I knew the truth was that she was feeling absolutely horrible.  She kept a smile on her face when I was home around her.

During this time I was applying to grad school at Alabama and did not think I had a chance at getting in.  I was applying for jobs all over the place and kept getting rejected.  Finally after a lot of waiting, paperwork, and pulling my hair out, I got a call telling me that I was accepted into the School of Social Work.  This was great news.  However I still had a bad feeling in my gut with my mom still very sick.

One afternoon I was reading over a paper I wrote and heard my phone vibrate.  I looked over and saw that it was my friend David calling me.  David is a fireman for the greystone fire dept and I decided to let it ring until I finished looking over my paper.  I called him back about 10 minutes later and asked why he called.  He told me that he was in an ambulance at that moment with my mom laying down beside him.  My heart stopped.  He told me that she was cooking dinner for my Dad when she passed out in the kitchen and my Dad caught her in his arms and called 911.  He told me that everything should be fine and that it was probably from the chemo.

I hung up the phone and started crying.

I immediately called my sister and she calmed me down a bit.  She told me there was no reason for me to drive to birmingham and that she would call me with any updates.  About two hours late I got a call saying that her iron was low and that she is just dealing with the chemo.

Then October came around and my mom was almost done with chemo and wanted to go to the beach.  She finished her last round and drove to the beach the next day with my grandma, my dad, heather, eric, and newborn Lucas.  I drove there with Sarah, my beautiful girlfriend, and met up with them and we had a blast.  It was great to celebrate and just be happy.

Two weeks ago, Sarah and I met up with the family at the bright star and ate some dinner.  Right before we got our food my mom said she had some news to share with us.  She had a CAT scan and it showed no cancer!  I was astounded.  I almost started crying right then and there.

I realized at that moment that I was no longer a guy going through a hard time.  I was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.  I realized how much I had at that moment.

I had a cancer-free mother who for the first time in a long time had a look of total enthusiasm on her face.  I had a Father who was by my mother’s side every step of the way and did everything in his power to make our family happy.  I had an amazing sister who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  I had a brother-in-law who I consider a dear friend.  I had a beautiful girlfriend who I was falling head over heels for. I had the best friends a guy could have.  I was a student at the school of my dreams.

I then realized why I was so grateful for all these things.

It was God.

God gave me this trial.  It was long, difficult, and overall worrisome.  It may not be nearly as hard as the trials some face and are still facing today but for me it was something that made me grateful for what I had.

God wasn’t punishing me.  He wasn’t punishing my mom.  He wasn’t punishing my family.  He was mending us!  I have never felt as close as I do now to my family.

I definitely realize now that I know who my greatest role model in life is.  That is my Father.  He never lost faith and always kept our family together in this time.  I hope one day that I will be as good of a father to my kids as he has been to me.

I’ll leave you now with a piece of a poem that my Dad shared with me a while ago.

I will live my life as all great actors do, only in the moment.  What my part may signify in the great whole, I may not recognize, but I am here to play it and now is the time.

Guilty Pleasure songs

Guilty pleasures…we all have them.  There are always a few songs that we all hate to love but we do love them.  Here are mine

1. Use Somebody by Kings of Leon

2. Bubbly by Colbie Caliat

3. Ironic by Alanis Morrisette

4. Rich Girl by Hall and Oates

5. Last Resort by Papa Roach

 

Top 5 Favorite YouTube videos.

1. AFSCME

2. Monty Python Philosopher Soccer

3. You know what he did?

4. Flight of the Conchords – Jenny

5. Nutri-grain advertisement

eMusic

I have to tell everyone about this amazing website called eMusic.  At eMusic.com you can download 50 songs and 1 audiobook every month for a very good price.  It has a lot of stuff that you would never hear about in other places such as iTunes or your local cd store.  Check it out.

http://www.emusic.com

Movie Scores

I recently saw Meet Joe Black and it had one of the best original scores I have ever heard, and thus I am inspired to share with you my top 5 Original Scores from a a movie.

1. American Beauty

2. Meet Joe Black

3. Shawshank Redemption

4. Finding Nemo – I know that sounds weird, but seriously it has one of the best scores you’ll hear

5. The Green Mile