tobyMac

So I finally got to see Tim perform live this past weekend with tobyMac. They came through Des Moines a year or two ago, but I couldn't make the show for some reason or another. Luckily, I was able to make it this time around.

Even though I play in the praise band every Sunday at church, I'm still more of a hard rock/heavy metal guy. I must say though, they rocked the house pretty good. It was kind of weird seeing a friend from high school on stage, and then signing autographs and taking pictures. Tim did a great job, and the band as a whole put on an entertaining show.

Anyway, here are some video clips. I recorded these with my Canon still camera, so the video quality is not the best and the audio quality is horrible. It's a long video, so it may take a bit to load.



Here is a better quality live recording of their song Boomin'. There are also several other videos on YouTube.





Good show.

ps - For an even better, in depth review of the Portable Sounds Tour, check out Carl's blog, One Pilgram's Progress. It's great to see others enjoyed the show as well.

Your "Ideal" Presidential Candidate -- Update

So it turns out that the website I used in my previous post to determine my "ideal" presidential candidate wasn't the same one that Glenn Beck used on his radio show. Not that it really matters. Anyway, after reading Glenn's email newsletter and seeing the address of the website he actually used on air, I figured I give that site a try as well for comparison purposes. It doesn't ask exactly the same questions as the first site, so I figured there would be some discrepancies with my previous results. And there were.

So...survey says:

1. Mike Huckabee (R) - 98.98%
2. Mitt Romney (R) - 93.88%
3. Fred Thompson (R) - 90.82%
4. Duncan Hunter (R) - 83.67%
5. John Cox (R) - 81.63%
6. Tom Tancredo (R) - 81.63%
7. Rudy Giuliani (R) - 76.53%
8. Sam Brownback (R) - 74.49%
9. John McCain (R) - 71.43%
10. Bill Richardson (D) - 53.06%
11. John Edwards (D) - 51.02%
12. Ron Paul (R) - 50.00%
13. Joseph Biden (D) - 46.94%
14. Hillary Clinton (D) - 46.94%
15. Barack Obama (D) - 42.86%
16. Christopher Dodd (D) - 38.78%
17. Mike Gravel (D) - 25.51%
18. Dennis Kucinich (D) - 18.37%

Another surprise top place finisher, with even more surprising percentages. Wow...Mike Huckabee and I are like long lost brothers, I guess.

Now, let's put all this into perspective, shall we?

How well do these things really work, anyway? Well, Glenn Beck put this particular site to a pretty good test the other day by having one of the Republican candidates take the survey, and it just so happens that the candidate in question was the one on top of my list -- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

So who is Huckabee's ideal presidential candidate according to the "Candidate Calculator"? Take a guess.

No, actually...it's not himself. It's Mitt Romney.

What?

Another interesting piece of information is that, according to the results of his survey, he only agrees with himself 71% of the time.

Huh?

So...that either means Mr. Huckabee can't make up his mind about the issues, or this website has some of its facts wrong. Hmmm...

Oh well. No one is saying that you should go straight to the polls and vote based on the results of these online surveys. I view them more as a quick and dirty gauge of the candidates that makes you think about more than just the front runners. I know it's done that for me.

What the...?

Apparently, this bear was scared by on-coming traffic into jumping over the bridge railing, and managed to hang on for dear life and climb up to safety on the concrete arch. It is being reported that the bear slept there overnight until rescuers were able to get the equipment necessary to safely get it down off the bridge the next day. Wow.

Your "Ideal" Presidential Candidate?

So I was listening to Glenn Beck on the radio today, and he mentioned an interesting website where you answer a series of questions about major political issues, and it spits out a list of the presidential candidates and how well they align with your political views. Supposidly, the candidate's stance on topics (and subsequently the results of the questionaire) are based on a plethora of voting history, public remarks, press releases, candidate questionaires, etc. in an effort to best represent their views. I thought it would be interesting to see who I most aligned with according to this site, so I went ahead and took the questionaire. My results are below.

1. Alan Keyes (89%)
2. Tom Tancredo (85%)
3. Mitt Romney (81%)
4. Duncan Hunter (78%)
5. Sam Brownback (73%)
6. Chuck Hagel (not running) (71%)
7. Jim Gilmore (withdrawn) (70%)
8. John McCain (66%)
9. Newt Gingrich (says he will not run) (66%)
10. Fred Thompson (60%)
11. Mike Huckabee (58%)
12. Kent McManigal (campaign suspended) (57%)
13. Tommy Thompson (withdrawn) (54%)
14. Ron Paul (52%)
15. Rudolph Giuliani (52%)
16. Bill Richardson (32%)
17. Joseph Biden (29%)
18. Hillary Clinton (29%)
19. Michael Bloomberg (says he will not run) (28%)
20. John Edwards (27%)
21. Al Gore (not announced) (26%)
22. Mike Gravel (24%)
23. Christopher Dodd (24%)
24. Wesley Clark (not running, endorsed Clinton) (19%)
25. Dennis Kucinich (18%)
26. Barack Obama (17%)
27. Alan Augustson (campaign suspended) (10%)
28. Elaine Brown (3%)

Obviously, I'm a conservative republican (hey, I'm an engineer, we're conservative by trade). That wasn't anything I didn't know about myself already. But I was a little surprised by the rankings. Probably because I don't really know a lot about most of the "second tier" candidates. The chances of most of these candidates getting their party's nomination are slim-to-none, but it makes me want to learn more about their views regardless. Would I ever really vote for Alan Keyes? Hmmmm...

Anyway, give it a try for yourself. I think it could have some benefit for you whether you've already got a candidate in mind or have absolutely no clue. Perhaps it will encourage you to look beyond the top tier candidates (D or R), see who else is out there, and educate yourself about their viewpoints.