When I was in North Carolina I found a box on Mama’s kitchen table in among some mail. It had a bracelet inside. Upon the bracelet was engraved the initials “WRL”. I thought about who that might be. Mama was always buying little things for people. But I couldn’t think of anyone with those initials. I thought briefly that she might have meant it for me, but my initials are “KRWL”. Honestly, given everything else I was dealing with at the time, I didn’t give it much thought. And when …

I have a love/hate relationship with Thanksgiving. I never know how to approach it. Mostly because I try to remain thankful for my many gifts the entire year ’round. Each day when I spend a few moments in the backyard with an affectionate squirrel, I am thankful. Each day when I have a chance to hug Victoria I am thankful. Whenever I talk to my mother I am thankful, and all-too-aware that I have been blessed with the kind of sweet, caring mother that most people can only experience through …

I am the ghost in the machine,
The fixer of all things,
Purveyor of time and hope
And oblivion…

Unreal! Saint Petersburg, Florida, police seized this animal from its owner, our neighbor, and opened an animal cruelty investigation because of the condition the dog was found in. This beautiful animal was left outside on the neighbor’s front porch in a crate without food and water for God knows how long, and was covered in its own urine and feces when seized. Our neighbors are rarely ever there. We’ve listened to this dog bark and whine incessantly for days on end for lack of human contact and neglect. Finally another …

We’re moving to a new server as part of the Windhaven Network migration. While we don’t expect any major interruptions, there are always unforeseen problems when you’re dealing with new servers. If you do notice any downtime at all, please keep in mind that it will only be temporary. We’re expecting a few hiccups, but nothing major. Expect the best but plan for the worst and all that.
We hope you’ll like the changes we’re making. The new server is going to be much faster than the old one, and it’ll …

“If you take a long, hard look at the people around you, it’s easy to believe in Evolution. Some people make it easy to believe that we evolved from apes, because they’re as far removed from the trees as the rest of us. And if you don’t believe in Evolution, you are probably the reason somebody else does.” ~ Wicasta Lovelace

It’s been a source of both amusement and bewilderment that serial narcissist Ayn Rand is being elevated among Christians as someone to be admired and celebrated. I have a hard time with that. Here you have a woman who was a declared atheist, whose philosophical musings contradicted most of the teachings of Jesus Christ, and yet she’s a hero to the Religious Right in America? Isn’t that sort of like Jews celebrating and elevating the views of Yasser Arafat?
It’s easy to see how so many people could be confused by …

One of our favorite moments of each day is when we get to see our favorite crazy squirrel, Sunny. We haven’t seen a lot of her lately, though. She recently had babies, so that’s not so odd. But still it was a little strange because even though Sunny had disappeared for a few days (when we think she had her babies), she had started coming around again. She had resumed her daily duties of chasing the other squirrels around the trees and back yard (generally showing them who’s boss) and …

I was recently offered an invite to join Google+, the new social network from Google. Like a lot of other people who previously hadn’t rated an invitation, I’d spent plenty of time puffing my chest out and declaring that I wasn’t interested anyway and could care less about Google+, swearing that I would just wait until they opened the gates to the general public. But, of course, when someone actually got around to inviting me, I re-evaluated my position. After all, if you’re going to keep up with all the …

It’s funny how much of life goes un-chronicled these days. I’ve kept a journal since I was young, and I’ve been on obsessive blogger for a decade or so. But these days even the notable events pass without as much as a mention. I suppose I finally got it through my head that it’s more important to live a life than to document details of what happened in it.
With that said, though, I feel compelled to mention a short performance I did last night at J.J.’s Café & Bar in …

I’ve been going over guitar parts this week in preparation for the show I’ll be doing with the Just In Time Band next Sunday. It was initially just supposed to be a guest shot, filling in for their lead guitarist, but I’ve since been asked to play on a permanent basis. I agreed. I’ve always liked these guys. That’s important to me these days. I’ve played with too many musicians in the last couple of years who just sucked the joy out of making music. The Just In Time Band …

It’s been a long time since I tried a new liquor. Honestly, it’s been a long time since anything came out that got my interest. But when I heard that Jack Daniels was going to sell a new “honey infused” version of their famous whiskey, I knew I could be trying it.
Well, all I can say after burning through a fifth of the Jack Daniels Honey whiskey is that I highly recommend it. Now, this is come from someone who has always liked Jack Daniels. What I love most about …

by Eric Sapp
Founding partner, Eleison Group
I recently wrote on why Democrats and progressives need to take some time studying Ayn Rand to fully understand the political significance of all the GOP leaders lining up to praise her. The GOP has a huge problem if their conservative religious base finds out what Rand really believed and how influential she is within senior GOP circles.
Amy Sullivan published a piece in TIME last week highlighting this disconnect and American Values Network’s (AVN) memo on it. There is a great piece in the Louisville …

All of my ReverbNation pages got an offer from an independent record label out of Charlotte, NC today. I have my own ReverbNation page, we have one forWindhaven, and I’ve kept a couple of pages for some of my now defunct bands – Systematic Chaos, Catdaddy Pirates and Bad Hat Harry. All received this “opportunity”. I’m writing about it because it’s the kind of thing that makes me shake my head, because I know there are a lot of people out there who are so desperate to get in front of an audience that …

A squirrel died today. That won’t mean anything to most people. But we called this squirrel “Little Bear”. To put it in the most human terms, she was the daughter of our beloved Sunny, the squirrel who has brought so much light into our lives. Little Bear wasn’t very old. She died from what I believe is some form of cancer. Her body was riddled with growths. Her eyes were almost shut from the growths on her head. For the last week or so, I had been trying to help …

Today is my mother’s birthday. She’s a hard woman to buy gifts for. Every year, in the weeks and months leading up to her birthday, I start pondering the possibilities. But I always wind up feeling like Mama has been short-changed. The problem is, what possible gift do you give to someone who is herself one of the most precious gifts God ever gave to the world?
In the end, the gifts don’t matter. They are transitory things. What matters the most to Mama is the love that is behind the …

Victoria and I will be heading to Michelle’s in a bit for a Mother’s Day meal. It’s going to be nice to hang out with the girls for a bit.
Both of us are thinking about what we’re going to be doing tomorrow morning, though. We’ll be appearing on a local radio show called Connect The Dots, hosted by a great lady named Ann Marie Cash, founder of The Best of St. Pete. We’re looking forward to it, but we both feel a bit like we’ve let Ann Marie down. Since …

I’m off-loading some recordings from the H2 onto the computer to use in a track I’m working on. Victoria is in the kitchen, cooking the Easter meal we’re going to have this evening with Michelle and possibly Katie. The house smells wonderful. I’d like to get into the Easter spirit, or whatever you call it, but it’s not my holiday. I’m happy to tinker around in here for the time being, and I’m more than happy to show up when the vittles are being served. I am a Chaney, after …

Victoria has been encouraging me to to audition for Simon Cowell’s new American version of the British show X-Factor. The nearest auditions will be held in Miami on April 7th, and that’s close enough to make us think seriously about it.
At the moment I’m kind of “iffy” on the whole thing. Given the realities of our culture, it’s likely the only people who have half a chance are either the young and sexy or old farts with incredible voices. I’m not young, sexy or in possession of an incredible voice. …

Phil Zuckerman, a Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, posted an excellent article recently, which I just had to share. ~ Wicasta
The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim …