Remember me?

Yeah, I’m the guy who used to post articles here almost daily, sometimes multiple articles in one day. I’ve been very, VERY busy the last couple of months and in the last 14 days or so I’ve finally managed to come up for air.

The weeks have zipped by since leaving Xerox (good riddance!) and although it’s been a very stressful and challenging ordeal to change clients and outsourcing comapies at the same time, I have finally gotten comfortable enough in the new environment to actually be able to sleep at night relatively worry free.

Coinciding with the reduction in stress came an appearance by Petra in Longview, a Christian rock band that started in the early seventies. Robin and I took the opportunity to see them with Mike and Shelby the weekend before last, then we all did some antique shopping and dining in Jefferson, Texas, along with a bit of sightseeing at Caddo Lake.

The Classic Petra concert was incredible. The lineup from the late seventies / mid eighties reunited to deliver a heart felt, bone shattering heavy metal Jesus rock experience. Lead singer Greg X. Volz’s vocals and stage presence having done nothing but get better over the last forty years, and I’d dare to say he has achieved perfection, reaching a quality in pitch and tone that rivals the original studio album versions of the songs.

The Rolling Stones may still be rocking after all these years, but I’ve not seen any bunch of geriatric rockers that can hold their own against their glory day selves the way the guys from Petra do. Were it not for the grey hair you’d think they were all in their twenties. The last time I’d seen Petra live was during their “Not of this World” tour around 1983. Last Friday night they were so much better. And I wouldn’t have thought you could get any better than the “Not of this World” event I saw in Reunion Arena some two and a half decades ago.

Pictures? Video? Are you kidding? I was too busy applauding and stomping my feet to do anything with the phone camera. Sorry. I think the bass and wailing lead guitar would have shattered the Gorilla Glass anyway.

Mike and I did some riding, but I was so focused on just enjoying the chance to have a weekend of not worrying over server outage reports and root cause analysis documentation updates that I decided to leave the video gear and DSLR in the touring trunk for the whole trip.

The good news is my brain has finally got a few cycles back from work focus to start posting on the blog again, so stay tuned for more of my drivel with new pictures and video, and of course, more cowbell!