You know what...I'll make you a mixed tape.

I am well aware of the fact that tapes have gone the way of beta, myspace, and Crystal Pepsi but it just doesn't sound the same when you offer to make someone a mixed CD.  So until I can come up with a different name for it, even my mixed CDs are mixed tapes.  I am stubborn but not stupid. I know the difference.  

I love a good mixed tape.  "See, records have helped me to fall in love, no question.  I hear something new, with a chord change that melts my guts, and before I know it I'm looking for someone, and before I know it I've found her." (High Fidelity, Nick Hornby)  Music communicates so much.  For those of us that will more than likely never make an album of our own original music, the mixed tape is the next closest thing.  I am able to choose from a limitless library of music that exists and put just the right song after song to communicate exactly what I want to say...with a soundtrack behind it!  Could it get any better than that?  I would declare that it cannot.  It is not enough to just put the right songs onto a tape (CD..last time).  There is an order and much thought process behind it.  Where do you want to take the listener?  How do you want them to feel when they begin the journey?  What thoughts do you want going through their mind?  How do you want to leave them?  All of these and many more questions are in the process of song choice and order.

I have had some fun in the last couple of weeks.  I mean, stuck in a bed with a credit card and digital music being the way it is, this surgery could be getting more expensive than I thought.  I have been building me many a mixed tape.  Truthfully, at this point they are just playlists on iTunes.  Many of the playlists don't ever see the light of day for whatever reason.  I have high hopes for some of these.  Not only have I used the music I had, but I just got a whole new batch of stuff from many different sources.  At this point, there is the compiling and ordering of tracks.  I have until Wednesday when I give my CPM machine back.  So time is ticking.  Go ahead and check out the artists, albums, and songs I have been listening to on the right side of my blog.  That would give you a little feel for where I am going however not complete at all.  

I do take requests.  Not songs to add, but if you would like a mixed tape I would be happy to oblige.  Shara always gets them.  Sometimes I am not sure if she even wants them, but like a proud parent she is always grateful for the ones I make and tells me I am the smartest boy in class and that this one is the best I have ever made.  Chelsey MacAlpine is next in line.  She asked.  After that, I am pretty free.  I just need to know where you are going to be listening to this CD (car, home, gym, prison...) and why you want it (working out, falling in love, breaking up, pre-op sex change...).  That leads and guides me enough to direct my music choices.  I was about to say, "Man if only I could get paid to do this!"  I guess those people are called DJs.  

Well until I am able to DJ on my off hours, mixed tapes will have to do.  

...It's coming

See you at the Guild tomorrow.

It is only a matter of time...

As a rule you can fool yourself into thinking something for only so long.  At some point, no matter how much you tell yourself it is not raining, if you are wet and water is falling from the sky...it is raining.  In the vein of thought, you can only convince yourself for so long that it is normal to sit in your bed with your knee in a machine that moves back and forth so slowly other people ask if it is really moving.  You can only check your email so many times.  Blog so many times. Twitter so many times.  Play mob wars so many times.  For too much longer, it is impossible to attempt to be with your family and do your job from a lofty tower.  All that to say I am coming to an end of my patience, and gladly my time in my bedroom and CPM machine.  I have enjoyed some of the down time.  The perspective has been great.  I have enjoyed being alone with my thoughts, but there are times when I realize that I don't have enough thoughts to be alone with.  Many of my thoughts involve other people and are stimulated by others interacting in my life.  Visitors are great and keep them coming if you have the time.  Always bring coffee if you can.  I will gladly say goodbye to my new friends of a ladybug I named Beatrice and a spider named Ulysses.  They will do fine without me.  Have a few things left to do, and I am stuck here till next Wed.  I will be ready.

A Whole New World

Tomorrow is an exciting day in the Bachman household.  With my surgery, most things have gotten worse.  It is harder to walk.  Take care of kids.  Mow the lawn. Shower.  The one area of my life that is going to get considerably easier is in the area of parking.  I have been issued a a temporary parking pass for the next six months.  That means from Feb 26th to Aug 26th I have been give permission to park in areas that I have never been able to legally park before.  I am struggling with this for one reason.  I don't have it as bad off as others and I would never wish upon myself or anyone else a permanent disability.  I do have to say that I legitimately need a pass and will use it to the fullest letter of the law.  I am going to suck the marrow out of this parking pass.  I will park in places that I don't even need to go for the simple pleasure of being able to.  Below you will see the top 5 places that I will be parking in the next six months.  If you have any issue with this please understand I am more sticking it to the man than other people who also need the space.  I also commit that if there is a parking battle between myself and someone else of handicapped need, I will always defer to them.  However at most of the places I am going to be parking, there never seems to be a deficit of handicapped parking stalls.  Gentleman start your parking...

• Target  ::  We just go like three times a day, so it would be nice to be closer. 
  
• Walmart  ::  They have like 87 spots and that middle isle is all handicapped spaces.  One will be mine.
  
• Fresno State and any other Educational institutions.  ::  This will be even sweeter if it is free.
  
• A Theme Park  ::  I am very impartial as to which park of amusement, just one that I can place my car right near the front ticket book.
  
• A Concert or Sporting Event at an Arena  ::  The student has become the teacher.

Those are my top 5.  If you have anywhere you can think of, please tell me or email me at bachman@thewellcommunity.org and I would be happy to park there in honor of you.  If you are nice I will even let you ride with me when I park in your place.

Happy Parking Day!

You and Me

If I could sing I would sing all the time.  I can't sing and I sing all the time so imagine if I had people telling me to do it more?  If I could sing all the time I would sing the most for my wife.  That is what a romantic husband would do.  Whenever I hear a love song, I think how I would sing it to Shara and then I imagine her falling more in love with me with every song.  If I could sing it would happen more at night, though if she asked I would sing her awake in the morning.  She is not a morning person so I think she would want me to sing her to sleep at night.  If I could sing, there is one song that I would sing more than any other song to Shara.  I hope it would make her cry...at least the first time she heard me sing it.  Cause that is what I did the first time I heard it and thought about her.  It would only be fair.  If you have not heard, or sung this song to someone you love you should think about doing it.  They would fall more in love with you.  Shara, I am singing to you right now.  You just can't hear me.

You and Me :: Rosie Thomas
You and me, me and you
There’s so much that we’ve been through,
through it all I’ve come to understand Gods love.
And if tomorrow never comes
know this twice, just know this once.
Knowing you has made me able to go on.

You and me, me and you
There couldn’t be a better two,
to be blessed and know the meaning of true love.
And if you leave me I feel scared,
fall apart so unprepared.
But I dare to make it through all on my own.
Yes I dare to make it through on my own.

Every Scar Tells a Story

Chicks dig scars. I don't have many scars. Not many chicks dig me. I guess that is ok in my stage of life. I need a few (girls that is...), but not many.

For girls, they will often mark moments by scrap booking. Taking pictures, and phrases, and pressed flowers to show an amazing time that they had at some Cotillion. Boys don't do that. Or at least this boy doesn't do that. In fact I would say that it is rare to see guys marking moments at all. Some are better than others and there is surely a sliding scale. But in a sweeping statement. Dudes don't chronicle like girls. It is interesting that nature has it's way of doing a little scrap booking of it's own in the form of scars. And like I said, I don't have a lot of scars but let me share my top three.

Third Place Scar :: When I was in 5th grade the students had desks that faced each other and sat in groups of 4 or 6, I don't quite recall. Regardless, I was sitting across from a girl that I didn't like much. I am sure my reasons were very superficial, but I was in 5th grade. All you are in 5th grade is a hunk of superficial with husky jeans on (or maybe the husky jeans was just me). Either way we would fight about everything. Including the papers that were tossed into the center of a desks to be distributed. This battle had gone on long enough to the point that we were not just grabbing the papers. We were now creating paper grabbing devices. That is lame, remember this is 5th grade, which is in and of itself...lame. So one of the devices I had made was out of some sort of scotch tape and paper clips. It looked cool and very robotic, but I can't say it worked that well. My adversary, on the other hand, had upgraded to a pair of scissors. Very primitive but it did the job of claiming territory and sending a message. On that fateful day I went in with my dork tool and she went in with her Wolverine Claws . She won. Not only the paper war, but also who can hit bone first. She stabbed me in the hand with the scissors and claimed her rightful territory as paper distributor for ever and always. I got a tetanus shot, no stitches, and a fear to reach for anything ever again.

Second Place Scar :: When I was 16, I got my first job, or at least my first official job. I had delivered newspapers for about three years but I left that glorious position to work at Taco Bell. That’s right, I ran for the border. Never have I worked in a more glamorous establishment. It was quite the experience and I know you are wondering...I do still eat at Taco Bell.  That must say something about the food I was serving. My biggest complaint would be about the people I worked with. They spent a considerable amount of their free time bowling, smoking, drinking, and talking about the next time they could smoke and bowl and drink. I have no issue with any of these activities but when it becomes your life and hobby then there is a problem. Very quickly it was discovered that I had above an 8th grade education and that sealed my fate as to where I was going to work. I couldn’t work the fryer; you had to be 18 to do that. The one thing I could do that seemed to stump everyone else was math, and not just math but math in my head. At that time, that was how you worked the cash registers. All change and math was done in your head. They didn’t discover this hidden talent of mine until that magical day when I was cutting tomatoes. The tools we had weren’t the best, highest quality, or the sharpest. Well, they weren’t sharp enough to cut a tomato, but it was sharp enough to cut my finger to the bone. Which I did, showed my manager, and since I had only been working 1 hour that day, they legally had to pay me for 2 hours. They wouldn’t send me to the hospital until after I had put in my time, so they wrapped up the finger in a towel and duct tape and put me on drive-thru…cause it would have been unsafe to have a bloody finger in the produce. By the end of my shift they realized I should have gone to the hospital and that I could count in my head. I got no stitches, a bloody towel, and the respect of my bowling, smoking, drinking buddies.

First Place Scar :: You know the story. I tore my ACL. Read the earlier blogs. I shall not rehash that old sob story. This one is different however. I am older and have a different point of view. The other thing that is different is what I got. I got stitches (finally!), I get to watch my wife praise God and persevere under enormous pressure, and I got to see how amazing my family and friends are to do everything and I mean EVERYTHING for us. Cook meals, take kids, carry chairs, you name it. I will never forget that.

That is better than a scrapbook.

Faith in the Arts

As a student ministry, we are heading into one of my favorite series (serieses???  I never know).  It is called "Faith in the Arts".  It usually lasts anywhere from 4-8 weeks depending on how artistic I am feeling or how many other people I can pull in.  The premise of it goes something like this...

God created everything.  I believe that everything has the ability to bring glory and honor to God.  You just have to look for it.  That is not to say you are stretching to make art honor God like a movie clip that doesn't apply for a sermon

 illustration ( I did that once with a Transformers Clip...simply because it was Transformers).  God gave breath and life to the artist that painted "The Prodigal Son" and the singer who declares, 

"These are the days of the endless summer".  They may or may not acknowledge who God is in their life, but that does not change His existence.

With that in mind we are ministering to a generation that is inundated with media and multiple inputs going at once.  My hope is that I can get their eyes to see through a medium that they have been exposed to for years.  See it differently.  Recognize that God is as present in a film of one man's struggle as He is in the mountains and ocean.  

Do you remember a few years ago those 3-D pictures that were in the mall?  They were swirls and spirals and a pattern that held another picture behind them.  For some people they were able to fix their eyes in such a way that they could see beyond the picture to what was the message behind the message.  Others never could and think they are the biggest 

waste of time.  For those who could see them, once you did it, you could always do it.  And forever, if you look at one of those pictures you could see beyond.  I want this generation to see beyond.  See that God is in the stroke of a brush or the gentle plucking of a guitar string, or a 4th position of a ballet dancer.  All God, you just have to know how to see it, and once you do you will never look at art the same way.