A couple of cool desktop backgrounds

I found some backgrounds on a couple of sites that I thought were worthy of posting for your downloading pleasure. I am currently using the beach theme as my background in anticipation of next week's trip to Surfside with the family. Click for the high res versions. I wish I could give credit where credit is due for all of these. Nice work.

MASSIVE is correct!

In response to yesterday's trivia question.



Matttoon
Athletic
School
Supporters
In
Vocal
Excitement

This legendary group of teenagers was birthed in 1983 to help lift the level of school spirit at the Green Wave football games. After an organizational meeting at O's house, the founders painted their faces and made the trek across the nearly frozen tundra and onto Grimes Field. This would be the beginning of many amazing exploits over the next few years that would propel stories and memories that will live in infamy.

Just a few of the MASSIVE accomplishments

The Massive-mobile - Pictured above with the signature Troj-Busting logo. Formerly known as Berg's car, the Massive-mobile underwent an extreme makeover and appeared out of cloud of smoke in front of a packed school assembly. Later that night we would roll into Charleston and onto their school grounds sporting the familiar green and gold shouting cheers like "WHO ARE WE" and "WE'RE LUDE, WE'RE CRUDE, WE'RE SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE". The 1985 RIDDLE yearbook (Quest for the Scroll) gives a detailed account of the event. We came, we saw, we kicked their......

The GAMES - Toga night, Hick Night, Shorts & Jacket Night, The infamous California Beach Party complete with the David Lee Roth halftime show coreographed and performed by the MASSIVE members. All of the members would sport their most rude, crude and socially unacceptable hat and shades. It was high entertainment.

Rambo Missions - Just typing those two words sends a chill down my spine. Hiding in the woods, adreneline pumping car chases, stealthily running a Green Wave flag up the flagpole at Charleston's football field, strategically placing borrowed items in Mr. Ball's yard, diving into the back of Dave's truck, washing the windows of all the cars in the Charleston High School parking lot (with soap of course), these were the best of times.

Bowling Pin - Let me say first that the students involved in MASSIVE were not troublemakers. We were not drinking or doing drugs. We were living life to the fullest (as full as you can in a midwestern small town). Near the end of the 1985 school year, the idea was birthed to "borrow" a GIANT bowling pin that was no longer in use at our local bowling alley. It sat alongside the building just waiting for this kind of thing to happen. With the use of a certain farm truck which shall remain nameless, the mission began. How exactly would a small group of students get a GIANT bowling pin on the front lawn of our high school. All I can say is, very carefully. I told my kids and their friends this story about a year ago and they didn't believe a word of it until I pulled out my yearbook with the picture of the GIANT pin on the front lawn. It left them speechless.

I could go on but suffice to say that we have many great memories from our MASSIVE years. It is my understanding that the hood of the Massive-mobile was passed on as a wedding gift several times before being enshrined in the athletic supporter hall of fame. It's also been mentioned here on the blog that there is a new force of students at MHS who have taken up the MASSIVE torch and are carrying on the legacy.

GOD SPEED YOUNG LADS. GO FORTH AND CONQUER!

Thursday Trivia!

(Clicky clicky for high res version)

Please give the correct acronym (and what the acronym stands for) describing this band of merry misfits. I will give full details after getting our correct answers. Mega bonus points if you can give me a complete left to right.

Hint - I am the guy on the left in plaid.

Found this picture

I have been busy the last couple of days scanning pictures for a couple of multimedia projects I am working on.

I came across this shot while looking through a box of old photos. One of the many benefits of having worked in the radio business was the opportunity to meet the people who made the music.

This is a 19 year old me with country/crossover singer Michael Martin Murphey. Michael was playing a state fair close to home and I believe that Rick B & I were together with him for this interview. I remember him being a very nice man and very accomodating to us. It was interesting to find out that he had begun his career writing songs for the Monkees. This picture was taken on his tour bus. He put on a good show that night bringing his son on stage to sing a song that had just been released. He also sang the classics including, Wildfire and What's Forever For.

I found another amazing picture that I will share with you tomorrow. It involves a certain athletic school support group in vocal excitement.

Continued prayers for the Chapman family

By now I am sure you have heard of the tragic death that occurred in the Steven Curtis Chapman family. His five year old adopted daughter Maria Sue was struck by a vehicle which was being driven by on of Steven's sons at their Tennessee home. Her injuries were unfortunately fatal.

Steven has blessed us with inspiring Christian music for more than 20 years. He's one of those artists that feel more like part of your family. I have leaned on some of his lyrics (His strength is perfect when our strength is gone...He'll carry us when we can't carry on) during a couple of low points in my Christian walk.

His most recent release struck me just a few weeks ago as I thought about my baby girl who will turn seventeen this year. The song is called "Cinderella" and it was inspired in part by Maria Sue. Listening to the song today put me in tears. How poignant are the lyrics especially knowing what we know now. It's just a reminder to me to enjoy everyday we have with the people that we love; taking nothing for granted.

I pray for Steven and Mary Beth and the rest of the family. May they all find peace in the midst of this storm.

Gas Prices

After a nice round of yard golf with Eric this evening, we all sat around and discussed the rising cost of fueling our vehicles and possible alternatives.

I found this story discussing Goldman Sachs' prediction of oil going to $200 per barrel over the next six months to two years which could potentially push prices at the pump to the 6 to 7 dollar range. Here's a quote from the article.

If oil hits $200 a barrel, which is the upper end of Goldman Sach’s prediction for prices over the next six months to two years, the gasoline picture changes quite dramatically. At $200 a barrel, crude alone would cost $4.76 a gallon. Add on the costs of refining and distributing as well as taxes, and pump prices could rise to a range of $6 to $7 a gallon. U.S. drivers haven’t radically changed their behavior, and it is unclear at what price it becomes unprofitable for Americans to go about their usual day-to-day activities, said Eric DeGesero, executive vice president of the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey."Maybe at $6 or $7 a gallon, it becomes less attractive to go to work," Mr. DeGesero said. "We haven’t hit that point yet, but we might.

I also found a listing of gas prices as compared to the rest of the world. It could certainly be much worse for us compared to some European countries, but my blood boils when I see the oil producing countries paying less than 20 cents per gallon for their petrol.

Here is a partial list from Wikipedia....

United States - $3.93 per gallon

Australia - $5.60

Belgium - $8.44

Egypt - $1.23

Iran - .41 (yes, that is 41 cents per gallon)

Israel - $7.20

Italy - $8.79

Nigeria - .38

Dominican Repub $32.77 (yes, that is 32 dollars and 77 cents)

Saudi Arabia .45

Sierra Leone - $18.42

United Kingdom $8.53

Venezuala .17

How's that for contrast? Something has to give soon.

Thankfully engineers are working all over the globe on alternative methods to power transportation. Eric informed us tonight of a vehicle that runs on compressed air. The idea seems simple and you could travel from Los Angeles to New York City on a single tank of fuel.

Here is a short video explaining the air-powered car.




There are many other alternative designs in the works including water and electricity. Check out this electric baby from Japan. It's not your Grandfather's electric car to say the least.

Let's do our best to hang on and get through this economic slump together. Robin wants me to mention a driving technique that she saw a few weeks back that is designed to save you gas. It's called Hypermiling. Here's a video explanation of some of the tricks.

Here's another one where the dude get's 80 miles per gallon in his Toyota.

Only God knows what the future has in store for us at the gas pump, grocery store and all points in between. I hope some of these ideas and prototypes make their way to the general public sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I have purchased a bicycle and am trying to build enough stamina to ride to work and back. Hopefully this will help to eliminate the pain of paying $50.00 to fill up my little truck.

Guess what this is?

My math was a little off over the weekend. This post is the official Paul's World of Funky Stuff 500th post. This calls for a celebration!

That's 500 dating back to our very first post on June 24, 2004. Our little corner on the web has now been visited by over 50,000 people in 106 countries.

These are some the people that have visited (with the number of visitors) the funky site. The envelope please...

United States of America - 37, 518

Canada - 5,231

United Kingdom - 1,814

Germany - 337

Australia - 334

Netherlands - 222

Spain - 198

New Zealand - 181

France - 176

Japan - 165

Sweden - 164

Italy - 162

Ireland - 150

Brazil - 150

Finland - 148

India - 147

Norway - 147

Mexico - 138

Singapore - 136

Phillipines - 133

Switzerland - 132

Belgium - 131

Poland - 129

Portugal - 129

South Korea - 129

Romania - 129

Argentina - 128

Thailand - 126

Malaysia - 125

Denmark - 125

South Africa - 121

Greece - 98

Turkey - 88

Croatia - 87

Israel - 77

United Arab Emirates - 57

Iraq - 32

The list is much longer and would bore you I'm sure... but wanted to just give you a snapshot of where people come from. Thanks again for stopping by and making the funky site part of your daily habit. I am thankful for all of you who are part of my funky world!

God bless and have a great week.

More Monday Funnies

So apparently this police office just whacked this protesting beatnik in the face with his club. I orignally thought those were his teeth flying around his face. Upon further inspection by our CSI lab, it has been determined that is shattering glass from his black spectacles. This one is not so much funny ha ha but funny wow.

These two continue our photo series called "Potential husbands of the year"

Very clever life sized google map thingy. Nice.

Cat on the keyboard

End of a nice weekend

I hope you have a great Memorial Day. Enjoy a burger or a frank hurter on the grill.

Let's go 500 miles tomorrow

Tomorrow is the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 mile race otherwise known as the greatest spectacle in racing. I would love to be there in person to witness the sights and sounds but instead will be watching ABC's coverage. With the merger of CART & the IRL, this year promises to be a great race.

The video above is coverage of the 1955 race in which popular driver Billy Vukovich lost his life in a tragic accident. Let's hope for a safe race tomorrow.

On a personal note, this is our 498th post on Paul's World of Funky Stuff. Two posts tomorrow will allow us to hit 500 on the day of the 500. That just might happen.

A little more Tommy

How about a little more Tommy Emmanuel for the start of your weekend. The melody is beautiful on this tune called Since We Met. Enjoy.

USA Today

I was reading the USA Today today at lunch. In the Snapshots section in the bottom corner of page one there is a graph listing the pecentage of U.S. states that Americans have visited. The subtext of the headline reads, "Among adults who have traveled outside their own state, number they've visited." Here's the breakdown based on their figures.

1 - 2 ------16%
3 - 9 ------22%
10 - 19--- 30%
20 - 29-- -17%
30+------ 16%

This sent my brain into a groundswell of recollection trying to remember all the U.S. states that I have visited in my lifetime. I am probably in the 30+ category and this is taking into account only the states that I can remember being as how I am turning 40 this year and the memory fades in and out a little. Here's my list...

Alabama - Been there. My sister Ruth used to live in Birmingham and we visited her on several occasions. We had really good BBQ in AL.

Arkansas - We went to Eureka Springs while we lived in Kentucky with the other people from NCCC. Walking around the downtown area of E.S. made you feel like you were in Switzerland.

California - Road trip to see my friend Craig. He gave me the behind the scenes back lot tour of Paramount, we viewed the city from Griffith Observatory and played football at Manhattan Beach. I also spent an entire night on a movie set (Mobsters) while they were shooting an action scene with Tommy guns blazing.

Delaware - Drove through Deleware on the way to NYC for my Who Wants to be a Millionaire audition.

Florida - Family vacation to St. Augustine when I was a kid. Since having my own family we have been numerous times to our favorite vacation spot, Amelia Island in the northeast corner. It would be a nice place to retire to someday.

Georgia - Neighboring state to South Carolina so we pass through quite often. Atlanta traffic is always white knuckle. Also love to visit Augusta in April!

Illinois - Raised in the Land of Lincoln. Lived in three different cities and will always call Illinois home. We will be back in Coles County the last weekend in June.

Indiana - Many trips to Indiana growing up and now. My Grandma & Grampa lived in Hutsonville, Illinois which was on the Wabash River just across the bridge from Indiana so we used to ride our bikes or walk across the bridge growing up. Now, Robin's sister and her husband live in Indy so we get there as often as possible.

Iowa - Iowa is probably my least favorite state I have visited. Not sure why. We used to drive through Iowa traveling to see my brother who lived in South Dakota. As we would drive through Sioux City my Dad would (without fail) start singing Sioux City Sue.

Kansas - Drove through Kansas on the way to see my oldest brother in Nebraska. I was just trying to make time so I don't remember much about Kansas other than seeing Arrowhead stadium from the Interstate.

Kentucky - We lived in Kentucky for four years in the mid to late 90's. Two of my sisters lived in Kentucky as I was growing up so we made numerous road trips to visit (one is still there). We have many friends still in Kentucky and love to visit as often as we can.

Maryland - Drove through Baltimore on my way to NYC for the Millionaire audition.

Michigan - We fed homeless people in Detroit for a week. I have also been to the U.P. and back.

Minnesota - Went to Minneapolis/St. Paul with my brother in 1984 to see the NBA All Stars play the U.S. Olympic team at the Metrodome. I watched Michael Jordan play before he really became MICHAEL JORDAN.

Missouri - The state of my birth.

Montana - Took fifty teenagers from SC on two trips to the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Browning two years consecutively. One of the most beautiful spots on earth IMHO. Spent two days in Glacier Mountain National Park. Stunning!

Nebraska - Visited my bro and family in Omaha.

New Jersey - Drove through NJ on my trek to NYC for the audition. Bruce Springsteen was playing a show in Philly to open the new football stadium that weekend so I listened to a "Boss Marathon" on one of the Philly radio stations as I drove north on the New Jersey turnpike. It seemed appropriate.

New York - Numerous business trips to NYC in the 90's staying in Times Square. Returned twice a couple of years ago auditioning for game shows like a crazy person. Ground zero was sobering to say the least.

North Carolina - Spent some time with the Rigdons at their crystal clear mountain lake cabin in NC. Jumped off a rock called "Big Alabama" into that lake and hurt my backside. My kids now refer to my backside as my "Big Alabama".

North Dakota - Traveled through the southeast corner of ND traveling to Minnesota to see the NBA All Stars vs. 1984 Olympic team basketball game.

Ohio - Been through Ohio several times going other places.

Oklahoma - Travleled through Oklahoma on the way to El Paso as a kid

Pennsylvania - See my note on New Jersey. Drove through Philadelphia on the way to NYC.

South Carolina - Current state of my residence. It's a nice place to visit and live.

South Dakota - Numerous family trips to see my brother in Sioux Falls growing up. I would spend parts of the summer with he and his family. We golfed alot and also toured the rest of the state seeing Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. Stunning scenery!

Tennessee - Fed homeless people in Nashville frequently in the 90's. Also seem to go through Tennessee (on one side or the other) traveling back to KY or home to Illinois. We vacationed once in Fairfield Glades and hiked waterfalls. I have never been to Memphis and plan to do so one day to visit Sun, Stax & Graceland.

Texas - LONG road trip as a kid to see my sister and her GI husband in El Paso. We went across the border into Mexico. I also remember seeing a sand storm blow a big moving truck on it's side.

Virgina - Filled up with gas in Roanoke on the way to NYC

Washington - Spent 10 days in Seattle feeding homeless people in the '90s. Beautiful place to visit.

West Virginia - My sister still lives in Beckley in a beautiful log home. We took our church youth group on a ski trip to Winterplace. Lots of twisty winding roads in WV.

Wisconsin - Several business trips to Milwaukee when I was working in telecommunications. Also went to a few concerts at Alpine Valley with my big bro.

How many is that anyway? Thirty two states.

I still need to make a trip to the desert Southwest to see my sister Barb and I would love to get to Alaska someday for a cruise. Mrs. Paul thinks Alaska is a horrible idea and that she will get frostbite. I may have to make that trip solo.

How many states have you been to/through?

Finetune

I found a cool music website this morning called Finetune.

Finetune allows you to find any artist or song of your liking and add it to your own personal playlist. Once you have 45 songs selected, you can share your list with friends or imbed it to your blog or website.

Here's a quick playlist I punched out this morning. It's typical of my eclectic tastes. The cool thing about this service is that if you don't like one of my songs, just click the fast forward double arrows and it will take you to the next one. Check it out for yourself and then send your playlist to me.

A few things for your Thursday

All I can say is that you REALLY have to love your work.


Come on down to my street anytime!

I wonder if this would technically be considered a rocking chair?

Speaking of rocks, this is post-earthquake shot from China. See the road on the left and how it just fell off the side of the mountain. Continue to pray for these people and those in Burma(Myanmar)

We will end on a peaceful note. Have a great Thursday everyone!

Road Trip

Robin and I and our children took off after work today for a short road trip up to Greenville to Kohls to get some new luggage (part of the Dylster's graduation gift) and a few other items. We stopped along the way at a place called the Red Robin for dinner. Ash loves to take her camera everywhere she goes therefore she snapped a few pictures at the restaurant.

I borrowed her camera long enough to snap a quick (slightly wobbly) photo of my reluctant to pose children. Notice the excitment in both of their eyes at their Father's mere suggestion that they should put their heads a little closer in order to be in the frame. Ugh.

A few minutes later, Ash asked Robin and I to pose holding the Red Robin glass (which we purchased so my wife could have a glass with her name on it when we got home). Apparently as I was positioning the glass and trying to get my hand out of the logo, Dyl suggested to my wife (his mother) that she should "nad" me while his sister was taking the picture.

Let me just say that in 20 years of marriage, I don't think I've ever been "nadded" by my wife. If you aren't familiar with the fine art of "nadding" I'm sure there is material in your local library or somewhere on the vast internet that can educate you.

Sure enough, as the flash was going off from my daughter's camera, I felt an unpleasant sensation in my nether regions and we now have photographic evidence to prove it all took place. I present exhibit A

Please note the guilty (way too much enjoyment) look on the perpetrator's face. Also note the "wind knocked out of me" grimace at the moment of impact that was magically captured by my daughter, similar to the famous Abraham Zapruder tape.

Of course, all of this provided a barrel full of laughs to the other three parties at my table. It took me a few minutes to find the humor but it's worth it in the end only for blogging purposes.

BTW...here is the keepsake that we brought home.

I've got a new bike

Robin and I went shopping over the weekend and picked up his and her touring bikes. They are not the REALLY expensive touring bikes that weigh 12 ounces. These are the medium expensive kind that still have kickstands (mocked by serious bikers).

She and I have been on a bit of a health kick lately and one of the missing ingredients has been in the exercise department. Having good bicycles allows us to exercise together. We even bought the slightly larger seats with the comfort gel butt rests built into them.

I rode three and a half miles with her on Sunday afternoon and then rode five miles alone last night and I have to tell you that I FEEL GREAT! Biking is wonderful and I have missed it. Last night was perfect weather for a ride and although I struggled just a little bit on a couple of the long uphill sections, I felt envigorated.

It's nice to be back on two wheels.

40 Days of Community - Finally Connected

This is the last video in our 40 Days of Community series. The original series script had a Thanksgiving theme so I came up with the idea of Jeremy & Ted finally getting some payback on Ron with their new ministry. We added Eric Evans playing Ted to our cast of Steve & Matt. I thought they all did an excellent job and the response from the congregation Sunday morning was great!

Welcome Back

On behalf of all of us....

WELCOME BACK SWELL GUY!!!

He's been in China the past couple of weeks and we're glad he's returned home. Check out his blog, Life with the Swell Guy.

40 Days of Community - Service Projects Video

This is a video montage of all the service projects our church small groups have done during our 40 Days of Community campaign.

Takin' it to the Streets

Our small group from church partnered with our youth group today to take part in some street ministry here in Greenwood. We passed out fliers last night and spent time praying on the lot where we would set up this morning. Tom and Lisa purchased a cool blue Huffy bike that we gave away at the end of the day. It's great to be part of a local church body that invests in our community (outside of the 4 church walls).

One of our youth, Joshua Kelly (a.k.a. Fancy Feet), took about 200 excellent pictures as we ministered to the kids. I want to share a few of them with you.


I love this shot.


We used Phillipians 4:13 as our inspiration today. I tied the Bible story about David and Goliath into the idea that we can do all things through Christ. Robin came up with this waterball/target game to cooincide with David and Goliath. Joshua caught the ball in flight (right side of the pic near my daughter's face) and if you click the pic, you can see the water coming off the ball. Great camera work!

LaTasha has a new friend!

The girl on the left is named Patience. She won the drawing for the bicycle and then generously gave the bike to this little guy named C.J. He rode the bike all over the lot and then we gave he and the bike a ride home in my truck. He was beaming with excitement and it just topped off a great day!

40 Days of Community - Blooper Reel

It gives me great pleaure to post our blooper reel from the video series that we have been shooting and editing for the past seven weeks at our church. This Sunday's video will be the final installment. Our actors are Steve Doll, Matt Dorn and we added a mystery actor this week playing a very important part.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to Pastor David Harrell for investing in some really nice equipment and for giving us the freedom to be creative using it. I am looking forward to more movie/video projects in the future.

I hope you enjoy the bloopers.

It's official now. We are the home of funky stuff

The Voice of Lake Land College

One of the best parts about being a blogger is hearing from old friends who "find" me by doing google searches or searching for funky things. It seems that the past few weeks have allowed some reconnections with several of my old friends which is really cool.

This week I heard back from a guy named Todd who I was in school with at Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois. We worked together along with a wild bunch of characters on 90FM WLKL, the voice of LLC...coming to you live from the basement of the campus library. Todd found me on the web and sent a nice note. He was from the booming metropolis of St. Elmo, Illinois. I remember a road trip to meet his family and hanging out for the weekend. They were really nice people.

Todd was known to carry around a camera from time to time. Amazingly enough, some of the old LLC photos have survived all these years and he was kind enough to send me a few this week.

This is a really interesting photograph that I didn't know existed! It was taken in the main studio. The studio door is behind my head. The other door on the right led into a small remote studio where the wire service ticker was located.

I am the 19 year old skinny guy being given a lift here.

Bub McCullough is 2nd from left. Bub has been the morning man on 101.3 WMCI in Mattoon for many years. He is not just a radio stud but is also very artistic with a pen and paper. Some of his drawings from our years at LLC & WLBH are classic.

Todd "The Tater" Fultz is third from left. Tater was so much fun to hang around and always made me laugh. He also loved to talk about Arcola Football.

Finally, on the far right is Brett McKinley. Brett was also fun to hang with. I accidentally got him fired from his daytime air job on WLBH FM. I cued his 5:05 news up not knowing he had messed up the first cut and cussed about his error. This streak of curse words went out over the 50,000 watt station to half of the midwest. He was fired immediately. My bad.


This is a young Brian Goad along with a crazy fun-loving girl named Leah. Brian checks our little blog from time to time so I hope he sees this one very soon.

Thanks again to Todd for sending me these. He promises some more in the near future. I will pass them along when I get them.

The month of May in Indianapolis

As April is to the Masters in Augusta, May is to the 500 mile race held in Indianapolis.

My first trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was back in 1990. I went at the invitation of a friend who's family owned a lumber company in my hometown. We took off early on a Sunday morning headed across east central Illinois towards Indianapolis. I knew absolutely nothing about the sport or any of the drivers. I thought it would be a pretty boring day.

I was wrong.

We sat in good seats in turn 1 in the Northwest Vista and witnessed (to this day) the fastest race with the fastest car in the history of the Indianapolis 500. I was hooked from that day forward. I have been back to the Speedway to witness three more races in person. I sat in turn 2 in 1997 when the race was rained out on Sunday . I went back on Monday and it rained again. I went back on Tuesday and saw a great finish. I took my son in 2003 and had great seats in turn 4 to watch Roger Penske's team win another race. My brother in law and I took our two daughters in 2006 and sat in turn 3 to witness arguably the greatest race in the history of the event.


One of the great things about Indy is the history. This is the 1911 winner of the very first 500 race. Ray Harroun piloted his Marmon Wasp averaging 74.6 miles per hour. He was a hired employee of the Marmon company. This car featured the first rear view mirror ever installed on an automobile. Most of the cars had riding mechanics who rode with the drivers in case the car stalled somewhere around the two and a half mile racetrack. Harroun didn't have a mechanic and therefore installed the mirror to allow him to see what trouble lurked behind him. Think of him next time you glance in your mirror to check behind you.


The pagoda at IMS in 1911.

The pagoda at IMS in 2007



The sheer size of the Speedway is amazing and unmatched. There are 257,000 actual seats at the track. The infield seating capacity ups the total number of potential spectators to 400,000.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the largest and higheset capacity sporting facility in the world. Here's an indication of how large the IMS is. Holes 7 through 10 of the Brickyard Crossing, a championship golf course, are located on the infield of the track. I've been to all parts of the track and the size of it never ceases to amaze me.

Just so you know, I don't follow NASCAR and I don't really follow these drivers once they leave at the end of the month. There's just something very special to me about the month of May and the qualifying and the buildup and legends and the "Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Engines" on Memorial Day weekend (Male grunting Tim Allen-ish noises). By the way, watch out for Danica Patrick this year. She's already won the first race of the season. Sports Illustrated may have jinxed her by putting her on this week's cover though. We'll have to wait and see.

You can get an infield ticket to the Indianapolis 500 for twenty bucks. Go early and park on the infield. Take a couple of lawn chairs, sunscreen, a frisbee or football, a cooler for your food and drinks and don't forget your earplugs. Get there early and see the parade of stars and the Purdue marching band with their giant bass drum. Then, get ready and hang on for the greatest spectacle in all of sports. You won't be disappointed.

Uh...I don't know why this idea didn't take off?

(Click to see the full size advertisement)

That's right. Carry your dog with you on the OUTSIDE of your car in a sack. Genius idea!

40 Days of Community - Two More Videos

Here are two more videos in our 40 Days of Community series that we are doing at our church (New Covenant) in Greenwood, SC. Our actors are Steve Doll and Matt Dorn.

This was our first week's video. The script was written by a couple of guys from Saddleback Church in California. We were just getting our feet wet with this one...

This is week four's video shot on location in the cultural center at Lander University. Steve and Matt did an excellent job on this one.

I will try to post the rest of our videos in the near future.

Do you feel lucky?

Do you ever feel like God planted a tree in a certain spot just for you?

Alaskan Playground

Some people build swimming pools (or golf greens) in their back yards. But outdoor pools in Alaska just won't work. Since this particular family lives on the outskirts of Anchorage, they decided to build a sturdy, colorful playground for their 3 and 4 year old sons, with smooth-stone gravel all around it to avoid knee scrapes and other injuries.

They finished building it on Saturday evening, and the following morning, as mom was about to wake up the boys and have them go out to play in their new play center, this is what she saw from the upstairs window.







You might want to put up a privacy fence before letting the kids go out and play. I found these photos and the accompanying story here.

Happy Mother's Day

I certainly miss mine greatly.

I am married to a wonderful one.

Give your Mom a hug today and tell her that you love her.

New Fiver

Thanks to Sgt. Cruz for this one.

Paul's Funkycast Number Seven

This week's funkycast was recorded live on my deck behind the house with the birds and fresh air and flowers and the ice cream man.

We feature an 80's flashback for our first tune which prompts me to reminisce about parachute pants. Go figure. I also have an audio tribute to my son Dylan who will be graduating from high school in less than a month. You'll also hear from Steven Curtis Chapman and Stevie Wonder on the 7th edition of Paul's Funkycast!

Thanks for listening!

When it's not good to have that famous name.

Friday Traffic Update!

Regular readers of this blog can tell you that I do my best to keep all of you informed of our overall progress based on measurable results and in depth analysis. It's not to say that success in blogging is based only on sheer numbers. I am sure there are blogs that get insane amounts of traffic that I would not want to read or visit but you get my point. It is nice to know that people are coming by and taking a few minutes to read my posts.

With that being said, here's the stats for this week based on my Google Analytic reports....

Site Visits - 2,100 (Thanks to Rob for putting a couple of my posts on Reddit)

Page Views - 2,880

Countries visited - 58 (Russia, China, Ivory Coast, Thailand, Iceland, 12 from Spain, 83 from the UK)

Cities visited - 1,020 (New York, London, Sydney, San Fransisco, Dublin, Due West, Ottowa, Beverly Hills, Sunnyside, Philadelphia, Perth, Madrid, Reykjavik, Cologne, Ninety Six, Paris, Singapore, Helsinki, Istanbul, Staten Island, New Orleans, Bangkok, Krakow, Les Palmas De Gran Canaria, Beersheba, Mattoon, Fond du Lac, Butte, Offutt AFB, Bethlehem, Moscow, Bogota, Moron, Yonkers, Braunshweig, Lodi, San Luis Obispo, Salzburg, Omaha

(I could spend half the day just looking at places that have clicked my funky site)

Top Google Searches (How people found us) -

Paul's Funky World
Wally Wallington
paul's wacky stuff
boobs + best + photos (I love that this brings people here - Bahahaha)
ben stein documentary
arnel pineda
Someone Somewhere Needs You
(and they're closer than they appear) - (My book that I wrote in 2005)
white man afros
john daker
childhood toys
ray manzarek riffs
funk machine bass
amazing photos
roll with the changes organ solo
tupperware headquarters
backyard golf tee box

That's the scoop for now. Thank you again for stopping by and we'll keep the funky stuff coming!

40 Days of Community - Video Project

For the past 6 weeks our church has been participating in a campaign called 40 Days of Community. The focus has been on outreach, showing genuine Christian love and building relationships with others.

As part of the campaign, we have been shooting and editing short videos each week. Steve and Matt have been our two actors and have done excellent jobs each and every week. Pastor David had the foresight to order us a GREAT new Canon video camera to use (Nice, Nice, Nice) and a new I-Mac with a 24 inch monitor to do the editing on(REALLY Nice, Nice, Nice). We are excited about the potential to use video and other media formats as part of the presentation of the message of Christ as we move into our new building in the next few weeks.

I am going to attach a Youtube of a couple of our videos over the next day or so....

BTW, if you are in the upstate of South Carolina and are looking for a church home, come check us out Sunday mornings at 10:30am. New Covenant is on Woodlawn Road just outside of Greenwood as you head west. Small groups meet on Wednesday nights.

We shot this first video on location near our temporary youth building here in Greenwood. It played the week before we rolled out the campaign.

More Tommy Emmanuel

After posting the two TE clips last night, I realized I didn't really give you a good picture of his funkiness. Watch this interview clip and then his rendition of Guitar Boogie and you'll get a better feel of what Tommy is capable of. He's incredible.

Then, check out his version of Classical Gas below. He was a drummer before learning guitar and it shows. I've never seen a better rythmic strummer/picker. Awesome!

Tommy Emmanuel - My Favorite Funky Guitar Player

Tommy Emmanuel is an amazing talent.

The first time I saw him was on a PBS special and I was mesmerized. My son and I watched with mouths wide open amazed at his energy and amazing innovation on the 6 string. A household name in his native Australia, Tommy is now gaining fame across the globe. His website details a new double live album that was released at the end of April. He was also voted "BEST ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYER FOR 2008" by readers of Guitar Player Magazine.

I like his stuff so much that I may give you a few snippets this week. It's part of our duty to musical education here on Paul's World of Funky Stuff. We'll start with Tommy playing "Angelina" recorded on KBS1 in Korea prior to a live show there. He wrote the song for his newborn daughter and you can hear here name "spoken" in his guitar playing.

Then, below, check out Tommy playing a classic tune called "Borsalino" on the PBS special from Sierra Center Stage. He does some really cool things during this two and a half minutes. Pay close attention.