At rehearsal yesterday we came up with some altered lyrics that are more suitable:

Lord, give new life
To this chosen
By the grace of ordination
O Jesus, Son of the Living God
Send your Spirit
In its fullness
On your son here present
Who believes and professes you.

Simplistic but it will do.

Weird weather here in Tucson! It rained cats and dogs yesterday, which almost NEVER happens in May. It's just strange. Wound up going to 5:30 p.m. Mass and was rewarded by getting to see my youngest goddaughter and her family. Aubrey is getting so big! She's 10 months old now. She's a very happy, smiley baby.

On June 4th the Diocesan Chorale is singing for the ordination of our newest priest, and we are singing the Becker "Litany of the Saints." I'm wondering if we need to change one of the verses, though, as it seems too oriented toward baptism:

Lord, give new life
To these chosen
By the grace of baptism
O Jesus, Son of the Living God
Send your Spirit
In its fullness
On your sons and daughters
Who believe and profess you.

Suggestions? Maybe we should just omit that verse entirely.

I went up to Tempe last night to attend my nephew Geoff's graduation from high school. Congratulations Geoff!

Saturday afternoon I met with one of my former committee members to discuss my thesis research and how it might be applied to some problems they are researching. It was a very cool meeting. It's a very heady experience to feel like your work is appreciated and interesting to others and to see how others find it helpful and might want to work with it. It really inclined me to try to work with it some more and extend/revise what I'd done.

I saw the new Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on Friday with a bunch of my fellow geeks (in this case, former coworkers from NewMonics). We had a great time -- it's a good movie, much better than its predecessor, and thoroughly enjoyable.

If you are using Firefox (and geez, if you aren't, you should be! Click on the link on the right and go get it already, it's free and it rocks!), you should check out the cool FTP client plugin, FireFTP. It's truly awesome!

I went to the doctor today about a nagging sore throat I've had since Thursday. He doesn't see anything worrisome. He did set me up to check my cholesterol again though. Stats: BP 120/82, weight 223 (up 3 lbs since October, hmmph.!).

More signs that Germany is imploding -- Germany's population will plummet by 12 million in the next 45 years. There's no hope for the German economy with numbers like that.

And people wonder why so many are upset at judges lately -- a federal judge has struck down Nebraska's ban on gay marriage. I guess it doesn't matter that 70% of Nebraskans voted for this.

Aaarrrggghh!

Never talk on the phone and be on EBay at the same time. I was INTENDING to bid on an item, similar to one which had just sold for $16. Instead, because I was distracted, I hit "Buy It Now" *and* "Confirm", with the result that I just bought it for $69 instead. Of course, EBay does NOT let you retract "Buy It Now" bids.

I sent the seller a note explaining what happened and begging for mercy, but it's up to him. Legally I am bound. Crud!

I am so stupid. On the positive side, it could have been a lot worse, I guess. Sheesh.

Three words: Aaron Copland rules!

Sorry, was just listening once more to "Fanfare for the Common Man". It's amazing how such a simple piece can be so inspiring.

Happy Mother's Day!

My sister and I went to the cemetery this morning to visit my mother's grave, and leave some flowers. Afterward we went and had some breakfast and a nice visit. It was nice.

A Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!

Fun with numbers. Today is 05/05/05! I love little numerical coincidences like that. I still remember how tickled I was when it was 7/7/77. And of course who could forget 01/01/01?

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Okay, this is the part where we remind everyone that Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican Independence Day. It commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1862, when a small force of Mexicans defeated a much larger French (yes, French) army.

Today's Star has a story on a Cinco de Mayo veteran who is buried in Arizona --
Soldier in Battle of Puebla to be honored.

It's amazing how the web can work sometimes. I recently had an email from an old associate, one of the members of my committee for my thesis defense. He's interested in my thesis research. In thinking about that I decided to google my thesis research and found my work mentioned here. (the actual reference is here) Cool stuff!

Tucson is a small place sometimes. My skating buddy Nicole has convinced me to sign my life away er, let her fix me up with her hair stylist for an "image makeover" so to speak. So I go out to the salon with her today to meet her hair stylist and sign up for an appointment etc. As it turns out, one of the owners of the salon is an old friend I'd not seen in a while; we've known each other since 7th grade. How bizarre! But very, very cool!

Incidentally, my appointment is for next Tuesday. I'll blog about it. After that I think Nicole wants to go for new glasses. I'm like her living barbie doll or something! Still, I'll take fashion advice from any reputable source, and I know Nicole would never steer me wrong. Besides, she's having so much fun! It's cute.

More fun stuff:

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

15% Dixie

15% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Thanks to the lovely Jeanetta for the link!