Christmas Tree, Decorated

Here is our decorated Christmas tree. We don’t have a topper yet.

Our First Christmas Tree

We picked out our Christmas tree at Peltzer Pine’s tree farm the first day it opened. It was delivered last night. It is a Leylandia Cypress.

Thanksgiving 2008

In 1621 Governor William Bradford declared that the settlement have a thanksgiving feast to give thanks to God for the harvest. Wanting to invite their Indian friends, they sent an invitation to Chief Massasoit.

The pilgrim men hunted and fished in preparation for the feast. In a day they had plenty of game including wild turkeys. When the Indians arrived the pilgrims were surprised to find that ninety braves had come. Fortunately the Indians were used to celebrating the harvest. They hunted and contributed five deer and more seafood to the feast.

Before eating, the pilgrims prayed praising God and thanking Him for his blessings. The feast lasted for three days and included games that the pilgrims and Indians shared together.

In their first year in the new world the Mayflower passengers survived, but now they were thriving. It was not without hardship, Plymouth had lost fifty percent of their people, but Jamestown in Virginia lost ninety percent.

I am thankful for the wisdom and sacrifices made by our ancestors. In his history, Of Plimoth Plantation, William Bradford said “a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation (or at least to make some way therunto) for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; Yea, though they should be but even as stepping stones, unto others for the performing of so great a work.”

This year I would like to express an extra thanks for my favorite grandfather through whom I am descended from William Bradford and William Brewster. In the example of his forefathers, he trusted God and took his family to a new place where they began our church and have shown Christto everyone they meet.

Thanksgiving is not only a part of our American heritage, but our Christian heritage as well. We were being instructed to give thanks long before 1621.

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Wedding Pictures

Full Wedding Pictures Album

Our Wedding In Pictures Video

A large version of this video is also available.

Download iPod/iPhone version | Download Large version

Plymouth Pictures

Here are some pictures of our trip in Plymouth so far.

See the whole set

a quickr pickr post

Governor Bradford Suite

Here’s a video of where we’re staying in Plymouth.

We’re Going To Disneyland!

Just got married, and what are you going to do? Go to Disneyland of course!

New Desk!

Since we have an office in the new apartment, we need some new desks. I finally figured out a configuration that would work for both of us, using Ikea table tops and legs. We got them on Friday and put together Jerrod’s desk. We did his first since I don’t live there yet and he really wanted a place to put his iMac.

They’re VIKA AMON tabletops with VIKA CURRY legs. Jerrod’s is two small tables together, but mine will be one long table.

The wooden cabinet and black shelving were already in the room, so we arranged them a bit.

a quickr pickr post

Our New Table!

We got our new dining room table! We picked it up at Pottery Barn on wednesday, put it together, AND had dinner on it.

Here it is;

It’s the Metropolitan Dining Table in black from Pottery Barn. It sits six and has a leaf which can expand it to seating eight. The chairs are Ingolf chairs from Ikea in black, with Ritva cushions in white from Ikea. I think it looks and feels great!

Shazam Knows Rainbow Connection, But Not Movin’ Right Along

Today I updated my iPhone to the 2.0 firmware and started trying some of the new free apps available. One of the apps I’ve been playing with is Shazam, a music detection app. You hold it up to a song playing, it records a for a few seconds, then it tells you what it is. Nothing appeared naturally for me to test it so I went about to try some of my own songs.

I first went for my Shuffle playlist. Shazam easily identified Bixby Canyon Bridge by Death Cab For Cutie and Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect by The Decemberists.

But those were pretty easy, so I decided to try something harder. How about Christian music? Of course, I couldn’t try just any Christian music, I wanted to try some older, rarer songs.

It didn’t know Until Your Love Broke Through as performed by Randy Stonehill. Okay, so that was a relatively rare song. I didn’t try the Keith Green recording, but it did recognize Grace By Which I Stand and Make My Life a Prayer To You by Keith Green. I thought I’d get a bit more ambitious, but it didn’t recognize Michele Pillar’s Love Makes All The Difference. Not terribly surprising, as she’s even less mainstream than Randy Stonehill. Shazam didn’t seem to know Sandi Patti either. I tried two songs; Love Will Be Our Home and Purest Praise and it couldn’t identify either.

That’s alright, but what about musicals? Shazam didn’t recognize Marian The Librarian from the Original Broadway Cast Recording of The Music Man. Maybe it would’ve known the movie soundtrack, but I didn’t try it. In an interesting test, Another National Anthem from the Broadway Cast Recording of Assassins was not identified, but it recognized the song from the Original Cast Recording with the information, or at least the album art, from the Broadway Cast Recording. I was pleased when A Little Priest from the Original Broadway Cast of Sweeney Todd was correctly identified.

What else could I test Shazam with? I decided to try movies.

The first one ended up being pretty easy. Shazam identified Bless Yore Beautiful Hide and Goin Co’tin’ from Seven Brides For Seven Brothers right from the video. I was shocked when it didn’t find I Swear I Saw A Dragon or It’s Not Easy from Pete’s Dragon. It knew Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie, but not Movin’ Right Along, which I feel is a great oversight, or Can You Picture That. I started up You’ve Got Mail and Shazam told me that the opening credits song was called The Puppy Song. Shazam knows The Age Of Not Believing from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, it must like Angela Lansbury. It cannot however peform a miracle and find the version of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love used in Bringing Up Baby.

As a final test, I tried TV. Shazam successfully recognized a song being played in an episode of Gossip Girl under dialog. The song was called Do You Wanna by The Kooks and it was in the Gossip Girl season finale. I didn’t know what that song was before I tried Shazam on it, and though I hadn’t been pining to know in that case I can see this kind of application being helpful in the future.