Lots to cover...LOTS to cover.
Do you want to start with the ridiculous story or with newsy bits? Newsy bits? O.K., but I make no claim on what bits of the news they are.....just so we're clear.
1. Eyes of the Exception is up on i-tunes!!!! So for those of you who rarely buy actual CD's and don't care about all the love and affection Jeremy Mitchell put into this project, you can just go to charlie's i-tunes page and download yourself out (or in). Make sure to write an i-tunes review if you like it (you can do that even if you didn't buy it there!) If my attempt at a link didn't work, just go to i-tunes and type my name in the upper right search place.
2. I now hava a virb page, which is like myspace, but I can put lots more songs and pictures on it and you don't get spammed with anatomy enlargement ads or skanky people. www.virb.com/charliedodrill I'll be the guy with the penguin body (check it out...pretty funny...Amy Stroup did that). Again, if my link didn't work, it's www.virb.com/charliedodrill.
3. There will be a new charliedodrill.com coming soon. I'll let you know but it is awesome! Again, Jeremy Mitchell. That guy does it all!
4. Ringtones will be available soon. I'll let you know on that one as well.
OK, now for the story.
I really hope this isn't one of those stories when someone thinks it's the funniest thing the history of New Guinea, laughing the whole time so you can barely understand them, and you're just standing there like, "What? Doesn't sound that funny at all." And of course, then you begin giving them the Amish/Dwight shun for the next week for wasting your time.
Well, here goes. We'll see, but just know I'm laughing as I type this.
I ran in a 5K this weekend in Nashville. Now I don't know how many of you have run or been around races like this, but it's really fun and the other participants and specators are really encouraging to the other racers. There are only like 10 people at each race who are actually trying to win, so it's just a fun jog for the other people.
At the finish line of the race, there are always a bunch of people cheering the finishers on to give them that last bundle of energy they need to cross that line. It really is nice and usually, the people who have recovered from their own run help to cheer the ones following them. It's a nice, Woodstocky feel, minus the drugs and nakedness (unless you're in one in San Francisco or Ann Arbor, Michigan [from what I hear]).
Anyway, the cheers really go up for those people who are older or have special struggles when they approach the finish line. Everybody really gets behind them to help them achieve their goal.
Well, as my friends and I were walking towards our car, we noticed a woman somewhere between her 50's and her 60's walking beside us. That wouldn't have drawn any attention had her face not been painted like a cat (a weird cat, like in the musical "Cats" (it was much better than cats...I'll see it again and again). As we veered off towards our car, I watched her to see what she was going to do (because you and I both know that a person painted like a cat is liable to do ANYTHING).
This woman pinned a number on her shirt (identifying her as a participant), turned around, and started running toward the finish line! People began cheering for her and she was eating it up....waving and smiling as she ran toward that ever-elusive finish line! She had not run a bit of the race, but she was going to soak up all the glory that would be given to a 60-year old cat-woman who had exerted herself in the hot sun through 3.2 miles of hills and sweat and pain! I could not believe the audacity of this woman, but I had to give it to her. If that's what you're in it for, that was a brilliant plan to achieve the goal as efficiently (and sneakily) as possible! You go, cat-girl.....you go.
It did kind of got me thinking about the day we stand before the Lord. It's pretty similar to this. Say we get paraded in front of the cloud of witnesses and get cheered for for making it. It won't be because of anything we've done. He did all the work. We just reap the benefits. We're just the old lady painted like a cat who gets to soak up some glory that all gets directed to Him on our way to the finish line.....which IS Him. What a deal, huh?
So maybe I'm a little more like an aging woman pretending to be a distance running feline than I thought.....hmmmm. No wait, that doesn't sound good! Don't post, no..................
