We came. We saw. We survived Martin Family Reunion 08'.

Destin, Florida. I will live there one day.

For those of you who know me, you'll know that I hate the beach (granted that I have visited Southern California and loved their beaches). Okay, hate is a strong word: dislike would be a better one. We're in Texas, right? Our beach is considered to be either South Padre Island (which I've never been to) or Galveston Island, where the beach is covered in sea weed and is surrounded by a massive sea wall to keep those pesky hurricanes out, and the water looks like lake water (And about as flat too. When you think of a beach, you want to envision massive waves!! Common!!).

But now! We've hit the Gulf-Coast mother load! Emerald waters! White beaches! Excellent shopping centers! Panera Bread magnificence! Wonderful places to run! Fishing!! (yes, I even bated my own hook)!
And by we, I mean my entire family. Which is strange, because it's been literally years since we've all been together in one place. My grandparents wanted to get all of their kids and grandkids (and now great-grandkids!!) together before we all started getting married and moving off to various locations, making it harder to all be together. So after not having seen everyone in years, serious partying occurred.
Just to give you an idea of how much fun/beautiful it was, by the time the week ended, it was unanimous (18 people voting a unanimous vote is pretty impressive!) that we would all try to make the Destin party happen annually (and help Nana and Grandaddy with the cost...they forked out a crap load for all of us to stay in a huge house and go out to eat a couple times).

But, even though vacations are great, it is really good to be back home and to be getting back to work. All play and no work, no bueno. I'd still would have liked to have spent an extra week exploring all the different nooks and crannies, looking for fun Mom-And-Pop coffee shops and whatnot. We did all of the cool tourist attractions (Parasailing, GoKarting, Deep Sea Fishing, Pier Fishing...etc), but those are only cool for so long. After doing those you want to find out where the locals love to eat and hang out and all that great stuff. Next time...neeeext time!

Okay, so, I normally don't do the whole picture thing...but...I'm sure you get tired of me talking *smile*, so here you go.



Three TogiNet Employees (who happen to be siblings if you can't tell by resemblance)! Johnny (IT Director and general "Guru of Awesome"), Me in the middle, and Keri (Producer and research coordinator for the American Top 40 Countdown, and office culinary mastermind).


And then there's little bro, Sammy. Not a TogiNet employee yet, but once he's 18, he'll man the company salesman post. Seriously, he could sell ice to an Eskimo.


And then we have the 'rents! Mom...and Dad. Dad of course is the CEO of The Owners Group, Inc, which owns TogiEntertainment, which is the hub for TogiNet Radio. In other words, he writes our checks. Mom does a lot for the company as well; recently she's been addressing all the of the book boxes for the "The Naked Truth" pre-orders that will be shipped out on the 30th of May.


The house we stayed in!


Aaand there's the whole gang. I won't introduce everyone because that would take forever.


A bunch of us at the Gulf Coast Gulfarium...


A crazy kayaking expedition...


Some Go-Karting (isn't my cousin cute? No you can't date her)


But my grandparents are way cuter. And such a great example for all of their kids and grandkids and great grandkids of what a solid, Christian marriage should be like.


Some fishing!


Some crazy wicked parasailing! (notice the looks of terror) (The parasailing company's name was "Just Chute Me". I got a kick out of it.)


Late night walks on the beach...


Favorite second cousins in the world. :)


And of course, good times with really old friends.

Thank you Nana and Grandaddy for everything. :)

Oh, and here's Viking. He chilled at the office and took care of...well...everything while we we gone. Now he's showing his butt about it.


;-)

Sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.

Am I the only girl on earth that gets uncomfortable with going into Victoria’s Secret? I think it must be a phobia of half-dressed manikins. In and of themselves, manikins are creepy (with or without limbs); but creepy AND mostly naked? That’s worse. Even when I pass the store in the mall, I find myself subconsciously averting my eyes from the windows. Weird.

After watching Fracture with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, I’ve come to get a big kick out of the word, “allegedly”.

al·leged
adj. Represented as existing or as being as described but not so proved; supposed.

We were reading the news this morning on the show, and there was an article that claimed an Illinois (or some other random state) teenager “allegedly” assaulted a police officer with M&M’s. Of course the funniest part is that the officer was assaulted with M&M’s, which you know…isn’t good, but using the word “allegedly” just makes it all important sounding. “California Disney theme-park visitor allegedly crapped his pants on new Space Mountain Rollercoaster. Disney, Inc refused to comment on the matter. Disney (Walt) Co, (Ticker Symbol: DIS) down thirty-eight points in the Nasdaq.”

I’m so sorry for not posting in a while! Things have been a bit slow for the show, but I’m confident that they’re going to be picking up very soon. This’ll be my last post until Monday the 26^th (Memorial Day…yes, I will be working!), at which point I’ll update you on the status of my Florida baked sun-tan and super calf-muscles from family sand volleyball tournaments. Y’all have a great week and relaxing Memorial Day Weekend…Holiday…thing. :)

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
April Cover (listen to Podcast)

From the South's Magic City comes April Cover, a Birmingham-based four-piece whose melodic pop/rock songs echo a message of love and hopefulness through trials and brokenness. In their 3 years, April Cover has toured across the Southeast, the UK and shared the stage with acts such as AUGUSTANA, NEEDTOBREATHE, SARA BAREILLES, HAWK NELSON, BRETT DENNEN, SEABIRD, BY THE TREE, DISCIPLE and THE WORKING TITLE. With an ambition to make meaningful, powerful rock music and a love for playing live April Cover is MAGIC CITY ROCK.

Well, we talked to Vance Fite (Lead vocals and guitar) on the show yesterday, and from what he tells us, April Cover seem to have a pretty cool thing going! Their style of music isn't exactly my favorite, but, I heard Johnny (who's impossible to please at times) hollar from his office, "These guys aren't half bad!" And The Viking was of the same opinion! Boo on me *grin*. Hey, they toured in the US and Europe, and are planning on going back to Europe soon; they obviously have got something! :-)

"Everyone wants to "make it". Whatever "making it" means."

Monday, May 5th, 2008
Slingshot57 (Listen to Podcast)


There were two things I did not realize about Slingshot57.

1. They’re no longer together as a band.
(Okay, I knew that, but it had slipped my memory so I was caught off guard)
2. They’re Christians.

We were twenty minutes into the interview when Viking asked front man, Ben Woods, what the band’s plans were for the summer. We had been having some phone connection issues, so I wasn’t able to tell if Ben was surprised by the question. But even if he was he covered it well! He went on to talk about the different projects and activities his former band-mates were involved, and I suddenly remembered an e-mail I’d received from him telling me that they had broken up. Woops. Viking was sitting there staring at me as if to say, “WOMAN, what’d you forget this time?”

But since we’d been able to get the scoop on the band before I realized this, I was really struck with a bit of disappointment that they weren’t together anymore. Ben spoke with a lot of conviction, humility and passion for what Slingshot57 was all about. He mentioned that in our culture today, everyone and their dog listens to music. It’s something you really can’t get away from no matter who you are. But the one common thing a lot of rock bands out there have is that air of “we’re just a little bit cooler than you” to them; not saying they don’t love what they’re doing, but, it was stressed that Slingshot57 isn’t about cookie-cutting their image to fit in with the mainstream status quo. They’re about using their talents and gifts they’ve been blessed with to the best of their ability: to make good music with good lyrics that show true vulnerability, and to really make an effort to reach out to people, as opposed to telling ambiguous stories about random heartbreaks and endeavors to vindicate themselves.

“We set out with a desire to do something that matters.”

That hunger and desire to put excellent material out in the music world made me wonder if they were Christians. So I picked up the EP they sent us and read the lyrics to all of the songs. Sure ‘nuff, they were!

Over the eight years the guys were together, they released four albums (including their two newest EP’s, “Slingshot57” and “The Evidence”), selling 17,000 copies (of the four combined), and played over seven-hundred shows. In October of 07’, they made the hard, but mutual decision to part ways and pursue different projects. It wasn’t a decision that was made out of anger or one that spurred as a result of issues or problems within the band. But it was one that was made after seeking guidance and counsel, and much prayer.

So who knows? They don’t have that baggage or ill-will towards each other that a lot of broken up bands have. They might one day establish “Slingshot57: Reincarnate”. :-)

Here's a link to a project one of their band members is involved in:

Dramatic Habits

More to come!

And I get to kiss you, baby, just because I can.

Today has been absolutely insane. I could tell it was going to be a weird one when I was walking to the truck to go to work this morning. Okay, not really, but I'd like to say that now that I think back to when I was walking because it was really cloudy and muggy and gross outside and I didn't like it.

Well, the reason for the insanity is that a few tornadoes rolled through the East-Texas area this morning. Damaging pretty much nothing (that I know of) and scaring us all to death. One of the tornadoes (or the threat/funnel cloud/updraft of one) came through Tyler and apparently swooshed over the roof of our office while the sirens were going off and everyone in the office was running around trying to catch a glimpse of it. You'd think that being the brilliant people that we are; we'd take cover in our basement that has the convenient access point of running-down-the-steps-outside-to-the-parking-lot-and-unlocking-the-door-with-a-key-that-no one-seems-to-ever-have.

And then the other tornado came through the City of Lindale (where I live), again, damaging nothing, but put my mother in a frenzy and my little brother in tears, bless his heart!

But see...the insanity doesn't end there. After everything that happened with the weather, the boss-man came running up the stairs and tells me to "look under all the chairs and tables in the building!"
Apparently someone in the city leaked a threat that a bomb had been placed under a table or chair in a building somewhere in downtown Tyler. But come to find out, that bit of information wasn’t exactly accurate.
The real threat was that a cylinder bomb-like package had been left on a bench on the Downtown Square. You know, which is close to the original threat, but not as scary as the potential of it being in our office.

So after the city shut the square down, and barricaded the roads leading to it; they called in the bomb-squad and the threat ended up being some idiot that had just left a cylinder package in the square that was filled with crystal balls of some sort. Which is a bit scary in and of itself, but it’s no bomb.

I know I’m coming across flippant. These are really scary situations. But it’s late enough in the day that I can look back and laugh at how much I was freaking out. Thank the Lord that we were all kept safe.

Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Leaving Sangster (Listen to Podcast)


"I'm Leaving Sangster, higher than the plane that takes me home..."

"Leaving Sangster broke onto the Ontario Music scene in early 2005 and have quickly become a household name in the Hamilton/Burlington area. The line-up is built on the friendship and music of Andrew Barbisan (Guitar), Josh Harris (Drums), and Justin Sawicki (Vocals/Guitar). Playing up to four nights a week, the band and their fans eagerly await the release of a self-titled E.P recorded in Hamilton's legendary Grant Avenue Studio. The newly recorded songs bring to the helm a fusion of jazz rock and pop that are more infectiuous then a common cold. What's best is that they have no intention ..ping. The band also plans a full length L.P release sometime in the very near future, as well as a tour, and everything that comes along with getting their music to as many ears as possible. Leaving Sangster cites their influences as The Tragically Hip, Rheostatics, Wilco, Radiohead, Foo Fighters and Tool. The ones who listen closely can hear traces of these giants... and sometimes all in the same song. With an energetic live show, and an ever growing repertoire of catchy original music... Leaving Sangster should not be missed. Do yourself a favour and catch them while you can.

For a band that’s only been together for two and a half years, I’m impressed how Leaving Sangster has created such a professional image for themselves on the internet. It’s usually the bigger bands that stress a professional internet presence, but the guys have really got a cool thing going on their myspace (www.myspace.com/leavingsangster) and their band website (www.leavingsangster.com)!

They’re from Hamilton, Ontario, a city that’s quickly growing in size to become a suburb of Toronto, where the music scene is very competitive. The more popular genre being played in bars and clubs tends to lean more towards the heavy grunge side, which makes things even more competitive, but since Leaving Sangster has more of a softer pop/acoustic sound, they’re a shoe-in for popularity when the local scene starts to wake up to better sounding music. ;-) (not a big fan of heavy grunge)

They have a new bass player (JP Shalala) (I don’t know how to spell his last name, but, that’s how it sounds!), and they released their self-titled EP, recorded at the renown Grand Avenue Studios, in the middle of March 08’.

“Well. For songwriting, usually someone will come in with an idea or a hook or anything at first. And it’s basically like Jenga. You kind of start putting blocks up one at a time and hopefully it doesn’t crumble. And you end up with a song that has some worth, aaand…that’s basically it!”

That was the first Jenga analogy I’ve ever heard, so I thought it was worth mentioning. *smile*