Somewhat Daily Words

So I'm in my third week at my new job, and today was the last day for the guy I'm replacing. He's been at this position for about four years, is pretty good at it, and if he didn't have to leave for a good reason he wouldn't. So to say that I'm a bit overwhelmed at filling the shoes of a legend, would be an understatement. I imagine it's a bit like how George "Twinkletoes" Selkirk felt in 1935, when he stepped in to replace Babe Ruth in the Yankee right field. How do you live up to the legacy of a legend? How could you possibly be as good, or better than him? I imagine these questions echoed in ol' Twinkletoes' head as he walked onto the field in Yankee Stadium for the first time. Apparently, he didn't let it get to him too much. He ended up playing for six Yankee Pennant winners, and batted better than .300 in five of his first six seasons. Not too shabby. Sure, he wasn't the Babe, but he did pretty good. Here's hoping...

So I mentioned recently that I did a bit of nostalgia/impulse buying on iTunes, but I didn't really elaborate on the purchases themselves. In the ninth grade, I loved heavy metal music. To put a finer point on it, I loved Christian Metal. I didn't have a lot of access to secular metal, since all of my friends were of the same faith as me, so instead of cutting my teeth on Megadeth or Metallica, like my peers, I banged my head and pounded my fist in the air to bands like Tourniquet, or Deliverance. And yes, there was the occasional Stryper or White Cross album too. But mostly, I dug thrash, and progressive metal, and Tourniquet and Deliverance fit that bill pretty good. I grew out of it, it was a phase, or at least I thought it was. By my senior year my tastes were more along the lines of Daniel Amos, Jacob's Trouble or the 77's - all great bands, but mellower. I'm sure my grandfather appreciated that too, since the volume of my cassettes was significantly lowe...