I was a bit nervous about how the finished product would look, seeing as Tintin is a two dimensional comic character, whereas the movie was made in 3D motion capture.  But from the opening scene on, the realism was incredible and instead of being distracting as I was afraid it might be, it almost made me forget I was watching something created and not real.  We saw the movie in 3D, but like most movies, it did not really add to or take away from the experience.  Either way, the finished product was incredibly polished and wonderfully well-done.

So how was the movie you ask?  In a word, fantastic.  There were little homages to the Tintin books throughout the film and the storyline, though drawn from three different Tintin books (The Secret of the Unicorn, The Crab with the Golden Claws, and Red Rackhams’ Treasure) held together well and was a wonderful and exciting adventure.  It was pretty enthralling from start to finish and embodied everything that I love about Tintin, namely the tremendous adventures in exotic locales with colorful characters. But even if you are not familiar with the Tintin stories I suspect that you will enjoy the movie, although probably not as much (the other adult with me, my loving and patient wife who bought us tickets for my birthday, did enjoy it but not nearly as much as I did…so factor that in somewhere).

All in all it was very exciting to see all of my childhood characters come to life on the big screen to be done so well.  If you have ever read any Tintin books or have some small children that enjoy adventure and have great imaginations, I’d definitely recommend that you get out to a local movie theater and see this movie.  There is a pretty good guide for parents here that you might want to check out before you go but I would not caution you against anything in this movie at all.  One of my favorites and I imagine it will remain that way for a long time.

Programing note: the ordering is mostly just in the order that I think they sound the best, not necessarily in order of my favorites (though the 5 five-star songs did lead off the list…so maybe subconsciously they did.) Anyway, here we go!

1. Rock n’ Roll is Free – Ben Harper

This is the ultimate starter song.  The opening funky bass line with slow guitar and snare build into the jangling guitar rift and they just make your feet want to move.  Leave it to Ben Harper to create my favorite rock anthem of the year and to do it with such a catchy tune that even though I listened to this song all year it never got old.  Turn the speakers up loud when you listen to this one, because it only gets better as it goes on, showcasing Harper’s considerable shredding ability on the guitar (which we all knew was there all along).  And could there be a better opening song for this list?  “Rock n’ Roll is free so come and get it!”

2. My Body – Young the Giant

Another foot-tapping anthem holds the number 2 spot this year.  Young the Giant kills this song with a frantic energy that really makes this song’s catchy hooks and distorted guitars leap out of the speakers and into your head.  I love the “take a breath slow down” at about the 3 minute mark that leads straight back into the frenzied finish.  I saw these guys play this song live on TV this year and the energy they brought was about what I thought that it would take to make this song work live and they threw themselves around the set with reckless abandon and made me think they actually loved making music.  Anyway, I just love this song.

3. Free My Mind – Katie Herzig

This is a great poppy and dancy song that is filled with fun hooks and loops.  The fact that Katie has an incredible voice to sing over all of the great beats is what really pushes this song over the top for me.  Frankly, this song just sounds like summer to me (I have no idea what that means, but it just works…maybe fun, light, airy and dreamy).  I also really love the string arrangement in this song that closes it out as it just wraps things up in a nice bow.

4. The Whole Love – Wilco

This song encompasses everything that makes Wilco my favorite band.  A simple growing start that slides into a full hook that pervades the entire song the rest of the way.  Simple yet complex.  Layered yet stripped down.  This song just draws me in and makes me want to listen to it over and over again.  For me, if a song ends and I immediately want to reach down and replay it, that means it’s probably going to end up on this list.  This was by far the best song on Wilco’s pretty stellar release that happens to be titled after this song.  (Sidenote: The day this album came out I was in the den reading while K (my wife) was watching T.V.  This song came on one of the shows that she watches and I immediately recognized it and said “Hey!  That’s the new Wilco song!” I’d heard it twice at that point.  I’m not sure what this story means, except that I really just love this song.)

5. Hold On – The Alabama Shakes

Wow.  It’s tough to make a song any better than this.  I heard this song once on internet radio (HT to Birmingham Mountain Radio here) and knew that it would end up here.  The funky guitar hook with the great interludes and quiet intensity of singing drew me in immediately and has become on of my favorite songs of all time.  My head bobs to the rhythm every time I heard and I bet yours will too.  Bonus points here for the ending with the piano and fuzzed out sound.  I’d never heard of this band before but they’re on my list to see sometime in 2012.

6. Powerful Stuff – Sean Hayes

Leave it to Subaru to not only create the car that I bought this year, but to also introduce me to one of my favorite songs.  This song has such a great laid back vibe with the catchy guitar rift and Hayes’ homey feeling voice.  Couple that with the great snap breaks near the end and the funky beat and I’m sold.  Just like on the Outback.

7. Barton Hollow – The Civil Wars

My choice for folky, funky song of the year.  This song has a hauntingly catchy quality to it that keeps you humming it even after it has ended.  I love the little parts where the instruments drop out and only the voices and the percussion sound through, which only add to the greatness of this song.

8. Take Me – Jesse Payne

My love for all the songs Jesse Payne has created has been well documented before on this blog, so I’ll spare you.  But even so this song is vintage Jesse.  It has a raw feel to it that is catchy and toe-tapping.  It builds and descends.  It makes use of horns and and an organ.  And then it starts a final move towards the end at about the 3 minute mark that really finishes things off well.  Just a great song and I’d encourage you to buy all of his music.

9. Alabama Pines – Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit

Another song that comes to you courtesy of Bham Mountain Radio (seriously, just find this station on the internet and start listening).  Another great folksy song with great guitar rifts and a strong beat (sensing any kind of a theme here?).  There is something about this song that just feels right, which is really saying something since I’d probably more inclined to favorite a song about California than Alabama.  So it must be good.  Even if it does have a little twang to it…but maybe that’s the appeal.

10. Down in the Valley – The Head and the Heart

We enter double digits with a song from my favorite discovered artist of the year.  I don’t think that there is a song by these guys that I’ve heard that I did not like immensely.  It’s got all the hallmarks…piano, stings, guitar, and good beats combined with catchy hooks and slow builds.  Yep, that’s me alright.  And this song would be great in and of itself, but then it kicks into another gear at about the 2 minute mark that really tops things off.  The frantic build up to the finish ensured it’s inclusion in this list and the fact that this is my favorite newly discovered band of the year. (Sidenote: After listening to this band for about a week I remarked to K that I had found this band that I really liked and that I thought she should listen to…and when I told her it was The Head and the Heart she said “Oh yeah, I’ve been listening to them for a while now.  They’re really good.”  Well then.)

11. Keep You Right – Blind Pilot

This is my second favorite newly discovered artist of 2011.  I heard these guys on NPR doing an interview and I liked the snippets of songs they played and their remarks so much I came home that night and got my hands on a ton of their stuff.  This songs has great vocal harmonies and wonderfully melodic backing instruments.  All the pieces are there; guitar, piano, drums; but the way they put them all together sets them apart.  Great song.

12. Roll Away Your Stones – Mumford and Sons

This songs starts with an incredible instrumental opening that leads into a frantic folk song.  In a way, it’s almost like walking from a fancy dinner into a hoedown.  And I think that it is the juxtaposition that makes it so great.  And again, all the things that I love combine to make a great song that moves back and forth from fast and slow, almost like it’s letting you catch your breath.  Tough to beat as far as musical talent goes. And I just love when the chorus of voices join the singing.

13. Chisel and Pick – Through the Sparks

This is just a really catchy tune.  It has a jangly hook that makes use of the piano and then brings in horns and other voices to make a finished product that is ragged and yet smooth (if that makes any sense…).  This is a great track but I really love the way that the end sort of descends into chaos and finishes.

14. Steal Your Heart – Augustana

This song is exactly why Augustana is one of my favorite bands…that is it is catchy, smooth, has a great chorus, and incredible instrumentation.  This is off of their third album and all of three of them are really, really good records.  These guys really seem to enjoy playing music and I feel like that shows through, especially in a song like this.  The cool drum stop at the end doesn’t really hurt anything either…

15. Empire – Rococode

This is a Canadian band that recently formed and contains some guys that I semi-know, who also happen to have played with Tegan and Sara.  This is the first single off their album that is coming out early next year and if this song is any indication, it is going to be a good one.  This song has a great rhythm to it and is pretty much everything I am looking for in a great indie-rock song.  A catchy chorus rounds it all out and makes for the inclusion in this list.

16. These Days – Foo Fighters

What more can I say about Foo Fighters that has not been said?  This song has everything we’ve come to expect from them including great guitar rifts, catchy hooks, incredible drumming and Dave Grohl singing his head off.  For me, this was the standout track on their great new album that came out this spring.  If you haven’t seen the documentary that came out at the same time I’d urge you to do so, as it is really, really good.

17. Allies – MuteMath  NOTE: This is not Allies as there was not a copy available and Warner Brothers does not allow uploading to sample.  So this is Blood Pressure, a good song in it’s own right but not on the list…

As a rule, MuteMath albums are best consumed whole.  Therefore, while it is annoying that I could get a stream of Allies for you to listen to, Blood Pressure works too.  Either way, the new MuteMath album that came out this fall was fantastic.  As was their introduction concert in a small venue with like maybe 400 people or less.  Just get the album already and be done with it and then go see them when they come to your town.  Thank me later.

18. Royal Blue – Cold War Kids

Again, the Record company foils any attempt to get people to listen to their music…so the above is about a third of the song for you to listen to.  Either way this track is a great song by Cold War Kids that features a strong bass line, a great guitar hook, and a catchy chorus.  Even better, it includes some hand claps (which I am always partial to) and a slow fadeout, which is great. Pretty typical of most Cold War Kids stuff, so I’d encourage you to check out their stuff.

19. The One You Should’ve Let Go – Zach Williams & The Bellow

Zach himself best describes his own music “It’s like trying to catch lightening in a shoe box.”  That’s about right.  There is literally nothing else about this man or his music that I can say that I have not already said on this blog.  So watch the video, enjoy the music and buy the album when it comes out later this year.

And that concludes…oh wait.

Honorable Mention for Most Played Out Song of the Year – Pumped Up Kicks – Foster the People

It’s sad frankly.  I really, really liked this song a lot.  And then every radio station and DJ and retail store caught on that it was a good song and started playing it non-stop everywhere I went and I could not escape it.  And thus, it got overplayed.  I did not want to add it to my list but I guess it fits my criteria from above and K said that I had to since it was apparently THE 2011 anthem.  So here it is.

And that is all the songs that were fit to play in my Top 10 (give or take 10) for 2011.  Love or leave ‘em, these are the songs that I loved this year and will remember forever as 2011′s best songs.

Love and Sweatpants.

Therefore, as fall rolled in this year, I decided that Kristen and I ought to carve some pumpkins of our own.  Given that it is football season and we are pretty big college football fans I decided that we’d show our school allegiances with our carvings.  I printed out some logos and got out the tools and we went to work.  About an hour later, some heavy concentration, and a nick of the knife on K’s hand, we had some fantastic looking pumpkins.  Or at least to these totally biased fans we did…

The biggest and most exciting thing that has happened is that we bought a new (to us) car.  K had an older Toyota 4Runner that was great and had no problems to speak of, but when you get a car with 235K plus miles on it, you spend less time enjoying driving it and more time worrying that the next bump will result in a repair that costs more than the car is worth.  So we traded it in to the wonderful guys at North Hills Auto in Greenville, SC and got an 08 Subaru Outback.  We love the Outback and could not be happier with it.

We’ve also been busy with stuff at church as I’ve had a couple of opportunities to put my seminary training to good use through teaching Sunday School and preaching.  It is truly a labor of love for me and something that I really enjoy doing, from start to finish.  It’s been good to get back to studying and preparing.  Both K and I have also been busy participating in our small group and the men’s and women’s Bible studies respectively.  That has been good for us as well as we have the chance to not only grow together, but also independently.

Work is about the same for both of us, which is to say crazy and sometimes fun for K and less so for me.  It’s a long time of trusting God’s plan and being patient, which is not really my strong suit.

I’ve been discovering some new music and waiting for some other new stuff to come out that I’m pretty excited about.  New music includes mainly The Head and the Heart, and Blind Pilot, while Wilco and Mute Math are slated to release new albums in the next few weeks.  Coldplay has one coming out too, but based on what I’ve heard of their newer stuff, I’m pretty ambivalent about it.  Sounds like B-sides from their old stuff to me.

I guess that is about all from the homefront here, but if anything changes, we’ll be sure and let you know.

Love and Sweatpants.

Making a friend

I guess anyone that has been on a trip of any great magnitude knows the struggle of trying to convey the sights and sounds that one experienced while on said trip.  And yet we try and describe it so that our friends and family can in some way experience a piece of what we went through while we were away.  So what follows here is my feeble attempt at letting you dear reader, in on what happened last week while I was in Peru.

We (by we I mean our team of 13 people, 1o from my home church, Cross Creek Church, and 3 others going with us) landed in Lima, Peru on Thursday night and got settled in and sorted out until Friday afternoon.  We then had the opportunity to spend the rest of the day and most of the evening with the girls at the House of Glory in Lima.  The House of Glory is a home for teenage girls that have gotten pregnant through some sort of abuse and do not really have anywhere to go.  This home takes them in and cares for them, providing them

with education, counseling, support, and the skills they will need to not only raise their child but to also survive in life.  There are five girls that live there and the oldest girl there is 18 and has a 2 year old and the youngest is 13 and has a 4 month old.  It was heartbreaking to meet them and to think about their situations, but it was also incredible to see the work that God was doing in their lives.  In the midst of one of the most horrific situations that I can think of, God has brought these girls to a place of salvation, to a home where they are not only cared for physically, but also emotionally and spiritually as well.  Certainly it is a hard thing to process, but in the same way that Joseph in the Bible saw God’s hand in his terrible situation, I can see how God is taking a tragedy and carefully weaving a wonderful story out of it, in the way that only He can.

Our 2011 Peru team

Our days Saturday and Sunday were spent with the local church body in Lima, Luz de Vida, visiting some members of

the congregation and spending time worshiping and hearing the Word of God with them.  I always enjoy the experience of worshiping in another country because I feel like it gives me a small glimpse of what it will be like in Heaven when there are people from every Tribe, Nation, and Tongue praising God.  Sunday afternoon we were able to take some time to travel to a place in the mountains where we sampled some of the local delicacies (like goat, beef heart, and guinea pig…) and enjoyed a short walk up into the foothills.

The alley where our clinic was held

Monday morning of our trip was when the real work began.  Our trip was set up as a medical mission trip and we were planning on doing a free clinic in an area of

Lima that was very impoverished and had also been targeted by the local missionaries as an area where they wanted to plant a church.  We had 3 doctors and a pharmacist and a bunch of medicines, in addition to 9 other people that were willing to serve where they were needed.  We arrived on Monday morning and set up our clinic in a small alley way that was used as a garage.  We had a table out in the street where we registered and triaged people, taking their vitals and finding out

why they had come to the clinic that day.  From there they entered the alley and our makeshift waiting room, where they took a seat and waited to see one of our doctors.  After visiting with the doctor and getting examined, they continued further down the alley to the pharmacy, where they received their medicine and the instructions on how to use them.  And then lastly, after all of that, we had a station where

Praying at the clinic

they could sit down with someone and pray, talk, cry, or listen as we tried to explain why we had come to their neighborhood to give them free medical care.  There was always a line for our last station and it seemed as if almost 75% of the people

we saw wanted to either be prayed with or to speak with someone.  We shared the good news of God’s salvation with them and we had about 10 people pray to receive Christ as their Savior and then we also had another 20 or so say that they were interested in attending the Bible study in that neighborhood.  It really was incredible to see God working in the lives of those people.

For me, I’d say that the best part was seeing the looks on the faces of people as they left our clinic.  I can’t tell you how many times someone that had entered downcast and tentative left with a huge smile on their face, a hug for each of the gringos, and many thanks on their lips.  It really was the most rewarding thing.  So thank you to each of you who prayed and supported me financially because I know that I could not have done it without you.  It was a great trip and one that I will not soon forget.

Now onto the other things…It’s the end of a long weekend and I am tired, sore, slightly sunburned, tired, and totally full.  And I’ve got to say, I think that a re-examination of your life might be in order if you cannot say the same thing.  In case you want to follow my blueprint from this weekend, here it is…

Saturday – A day at the lake.  Kristen and I headed up to some of her oldest friends lakehouse area for a day on the lake and a murder mystery party.  There was a ton of food, a couple of boats, a good dock and a large amount of friendly people.  Pretty much the recipe for a perfect lake day.  We bumbled through the murder mystery (The end was a little anti-climactic) but had a great time hanging out and tubing, water skiing, and boat surfing.  I am proud to say that I still have water skiing skills, even though it has been about 8 years since I last tried.  We stayed out there all day and basically just enjoyed the sunshine and wonderful water.

Sunday – This Sunday involved some sleeping in, our favorite breakfast spot, the French Open, the pool, some good books, and a movie.  Not at all a bad way to spend a super hot Sunday.  Especially one where you are pretty sore from all of your rigorous lake activity the day before.

Monday – Besides not going to work (which made it a great day in and of itself…), we slept in again, watched some more French Open, fixed our dryer, messed around with our A/C ducts (not quite as successful as the dryer but I am gaining on it) cooked out brats for lunch and burgers for dinner, and then spent another long and lazy afternoon at the pool with some good books.  All in all, a pretty great day if you ask me.

So yeah, it was a pretty great weekend overall.  I even got some new music which any of you regular readers will know that I am a huge fan of.  Girl Talk (a nerdy DJ guy) has a free album out there on the internet and it is pretty doggone good.  It’s not really for the faint of the heart if you get my drift, but we wore it out all weekend.  So if you are into remixes and rap I’d check it out.  Otherwise check out Rococode, a great new indie band out of Canada.

So there it is.  Hope your weekend was as epic as mine and that you are primed for a great week.

Love and Sweatpants.

Anyway, today’s topic is camping.  When I was a kid almost all of our family vacations took place on hiking trails and in tents, which was pretty fantastic if you were a curious young boy that liked being outside (check.).  But once high school came around I really got away from it and then in college went on a few ill-fated trips and did not really camp much at all, save one summer in Colorado where I lived in a Tepee and chased 8-10 year old little boys around the camp and tried to keep them from killing themselves…

But Kristen and I have decided to be campers and so I now spend an inordinate amount of time looking at REI’s website and adding things to my Wish list in the event we gain a large inheritance or something like that.  We haven’t really decided yet if we are hardcore backpackers yet (though Kristen would like to be…), mostly just because that takes a greater commitment and more expensive equipment.  So for now we are car campers (no RV’s or trailers for us…) which works well as we can haul all of our stuff to the campsite and still keep the dogs under control (What, you thought we’d leave them out of this?).

Really, I’d love to take a long sabbatical from work and go hike a large section of the Appalachian Trail, or maybe the Grand Canyon or something like that.  But I think that those might just be pipe dreams (and not just because I cannot get any time off of work…) for now.  Maybe later.  I also think that I’d be a way cooler camper if I had a tent that looked like a VW van, which would be awesome but would generate tons of awkward conversations with strangers wanting to know about your tent.  So for now we’ll just stick with our regular old green tent, our patchwork camping kit, and our grandiose dreams of conquering the wilderness while staying close enough to home that we do not have to spend too much time in the car to get to the actual campsites (a small problem in Alabama…).

But if anyone has any suggestions on where to camp that is not blazing hot and is semi-private in the southeast, I’d love to know.  Or if you want to share general camping advice or stories, that’d be good too.  I’ll leave you with a good one of my own and then you can discuss accordingly.  One of the last family camping trips we ever took was in either Oregon or way Northern California and involved a large family campground.  One night my Dad and my sister and I were all walking back to our campsite when we passed a foldout tent that was housed halfway on the back of a motorcycle trailer and halfway on a single pole.  Literally, as we were walking by the pole collapsed under the weight of the two people that were inside the tent and then folded up with them inside of it.  We could hear them yelling and thrashing inside the tent but instead of helping them (like normal good people would have) we were laughing too hard to do anything.  Afraid that someone (namely the people in the tent) would see or hear us, my Dad grabbed us and we took off running back to our campsite where we collapsed by the fire and laughed until our sides hurt.  Pretty sure that is a classic “You had to be there” moment, but it always comes to mind when I think about camping.  So fun, yet so unpredictable.

So of course, I need your help in this endeavor.  Obviously there is a cost to this and just as clearly there is a need for prayer support.  Kristen and I have put forth half of the cost of the trip ourselves, but that still leaves about $900 dollars left to be raised.  Any small amount that you can give would be greatly appreciated, but what would be more appreciated is your prayers.  You can pray specifically for the following: that our team would be willing servants that reach out to what Jesus calls the least of these as we seek to help them physically, that we would grow personally in our walks with God both leading up to the trip and on the ground there, and that the small seeds that are planted in people’s lives would take root and blossom into salvation.

Thanks for reading,

Sam

But, as I was stuck in traffic on my way to work, I thought about it again and got my phone out and listened to the message.  Apparently I was drunk dialed by someone last night who somehow kept their name and number from showing up on my phone, and was also inebriated enough to miss the fact that my greeting was not who they were trying to call.  The message starts mid-rant and uses a lot of choice language but the gist of it implies that someone is a crackhead (this word was thrown around about 20 times in 2 minutes…), is missing out on the best white woman they’ve ever met, took their nieces to buy drugs, has a crippled cousin that deals drugs out of a basement, and knows someone named Linda that will take the callers’ side over and against the intended message recipient…

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh at all of it or to call Family Services…even though I had no identifying information whatsoever.  So I guess at this point I can only hope for a few outcomes: 1. Upon a sober awakening this morning the caller realized their mistake and realized that maybe it is not such a good idea to try and dial people to cuss out and call a crackhead from memory.  Lesson learned and no more late night phone calls for me. 2. Upon awakening this morning above caller runs into or calls the “crackhead” and references last night’s call, only to have incredible amounts of awkwardness abound.  That’d be great.  And hopefully result in no more calls for me.  Or 3. They wake up this morning mad as ever but get the number right next time and again, no more calls for me.  Either way, I’m rooting for no more calls to me except those intended for me.  And even though it was a little offputting to start my morning that way, I have to say that it was entertaining.

But no matter what, it just reinforces my life rule to never ever answer a phone call from a number I do not know unless I am sure someone is supposed to be calling me.  I can’t tell you how many times this has save me from incredible awkwardness…well, at least 3 times that I can remember.