Hugh's Worthless Blog

Well, the flex spending plan we use at the university did not like the fact that we paid $450 on my daughter's wisdom teeth (Hey, I bet I liked paying for it even less!). So they wanted me to FAX them a copy of the receipt so they could approve the expense on my Flex account. Since we do not have a FAX machine at home (nor long distance service on our land line) I needed some way to FAX them the receipt. I could have done it here at work on the department FAX machine and pay the 30 or 40 cents it cost to FAX it long distance, but instead I scanned the receipt and FAX'ed it for FREE using FaxZero . It was fast and worked flawlessly. This is a great way to send free FAXes over the Internet. Thanks, faxZERO!

It's a limited time offer but right now at Geeks.com if you spend $50 on most items you get your order shipped for only $1.99. I try never to pass up this cheap shipping deal, especially since they always have such good deals anyway. I ended up getting a rack mountable 24-port switch and a pair of Powerline Ethernet adapters for our department for a grand total of $70 including shipping. You can't beat that price!

I received the new Casting Crowns CD, "The Altar and the Door", in the mail yesterday and the worst things I can say about it are: 1) It only has 10 songs and 2) what is that funny thing at the end of "All Because of Jesus"? Anyone who has the CD should know what I mean. It reminds me of MercyMe's "Coming Up To Breathe" which had a similar very weird hidden track at the end of the last song. It is one thing to have a hidden track at the end, but why do some artists put such unusual choices?. I did a Google search for "altar and the door" with "hidden track" and it appears to be a Korean peace song called "White Dove, Fly High". Weird. Otherwise, I like "The Altar and the Door" better than "Lifesongs" but not as much as their debut album. It has a lot more piano heavy ballads which are done very well and features Megan and Melodee more on vocals which contrast very well against Mark's voice.

Okay, on Tuesday I pre-ordered Steven Curtis Chapman's "This Moment" so I actually get to listen to the album before the official release in October. Best $18 I've spent in a while. I'll have to say that Steven's new album is just terrific. The song "Cinderella" is one of my favorites, a very touching song about a father watching her daughter grow up (not easy for me to listen to with an oldest daughter just starting her junior year in High School!) I have already figured out all the lyrics and added them to my "This Moment" lyrics page . I also added "With One Voice" which is another worship type song he has written and performs with his sons and a full chorus. Caleb's voice is very distinctive and he sounds great singing with his dad. Steven also has his usual Mary Beth inspired song, another piano-heavy ballad called "One Heartbeat", which is not quite as touching as "Cinderella", but still a great son...

You can now listen to Steven Curtis Chapman go over a new song from "This Moment" on a iTickets video and hear the full song at the end along with all the lyrics. The song is "Children of God" and is a audience participatory worship song (a la Chris Tomlin). I have grabbed all the lyrics and added them to my "This Moment" lyrics page . From the first two songs this sounds like it will be an excellent album. I will pre-order my own copy tomorrow, Aug 14, when it will supposedly be available for sale at his official web site and get early access to hear the music. I will let you know more once I pre-order it and see what they send me.