things have been crazy hectic lately. working in reverse:

• Monday - right now I'm catching up on 2 weeks of email and work related items. currently listening to the new Sun Kil Moon record on their MySpace Page; brilliant stuff.
• Saturday - I got back from skiing 3 days with my family, while Sarah stayed home and continued to recover (she's doing a lot better!).
  
• Wednesday-Friday - got my ski legs back; finished reading Cool It!; filled out job paperwork; got call from Onyx that all the data on my computer can recovered for a mere $800; philosophical debate over question "are my MP3s, Seminary notes and papers, music charts, pictures from the last 6 months worth $800?"
  
• Tuesday - before leaving Atlanta for Colorado, I dropped off my 8-month-old MacBook to get the hard drive worked on (only one week earlier, I had the battery replaced... could things get any worse?)
• Monday (St. Pat's) - I played with Emerald Road twice: at lunch for the entire crowd of Clemson Elementary students and teachers; at early dinner at Fitzpatrick's Irish Pub in Greenville. great gigs both of them. will miss this.
• Sunday - frantically tried to figure out life without access to my computer: can't print Tuesday's test; can't print e-Tickets; can't update my iPod with the podcasts I need to prepare to teach Sunday school the next week (later found that my iPod is also dead)
• Saturday - take care of Sarah; trying to keep up with my workload, I sit down to do one more chart for Sandra McCracken before watching Half Nelson with Sarah; perhaps 10 minutes within finishing the chart, my computer crashes; I make feeble attempts to fix it; no luck; watch movie, go to bed, try not to think of impending doom of data loss
• Friday - take Sarah to have her gall bladder removed; I play Scrabble in the waiting room with my mother-in-law; surgery is successful; run into Greg Thompson in the parking lot; Sarah sleeps most of the day, I work from home; starting research for Ethics paper on environmental ethics
  

sorry about that Memento-style post (or maybe more like the Seinfeld episode, "The Betrayal"). sometimes that's the best way to decompress. it's also an interesting way to study history, learning the effects first so the cause can be much better understood. when I took European History as a High School Sophomore, my teacher took this approach. I had trouble staying awake in Mr. Forbes' class, despite the arctic setting of his thermostat and his use of a yard stick to emphasize certain points on the board. I love history, but maybe on my own terms. anyways, what stuck with me from his class was that "history in reverse" mentality.

sometimes when we look at things way in the past, we have no context for how it has effected our present state. when I was a baby Christian, I didn't understand most of the Old Testament. I think many people are confused by it, even into later stages of their Christian maturity. things have come into much clearer focus in recent years, moreso every time I go through the OT. the Sunday School class I'm facilitating is on the subject of Biblical Theology. we've been making our way from Genesis all the way to Revelation, look at the themes of Kingdom, Covenant, and Mediator, seeing the unity in all of Scripture. right now we're in the Prophets. better understanding the Prophets and the rest of the Old Testament has really brought the New Testament into clearer focus. without it, the Resurrection, which we just celebrated yesterday on Easter, seems kind of out of place. why did Jesus have to live on earth? why did he die? why does he live again?

wow, how did I get that off track? stream of consciousness can be fun.

anyways, if you got this far, please hear my plea:

• now that my hard drive has been replaced, I have no one's contact information... I repeat, "no one". please please please send me your email address, phone #, and street address. I probably don't have your new information as it is, so take this as an excuse to update Sarah and me on your life. our lives are about the drastically change, and we'll fill you in on those details as they become less hazy.
• email me: luke [dot] brodine [at] gmail [dot] com
  

emerald road

realizing that I haven't posted in, oh, over 3 months, I figure it's impossible to catch you all up on what I've been up to. let alone the thousand and one ideas to post that I've had to leave by the wayside.

but the major thing that I've been working on is a new album with my Irish/Celtic Folk Band, Emerald Road. We just got it back from the manufacturers last week and have already sold over 200 copies! it kind of helped that we had 3 concerts this weekend with the Anderson Symphony Orchestra.

we have a few places on the internet that you can visit to hear some of our music, find out about shows, and (soon) order a copy for yourself at the low price of $5 (+ shipping and handling).

pick your poison:
Official Website: www.emeraldroad.net
MySpace: www.myspace.com/emeraldroad
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Emerald-Road/21822600744