Whenever I try to embed a youtube video it doesn’t work. Is it because I’m not premium anymore? I used to just be able to cut and paste the embed code into the post and it would work. Now? Not so much. Big eProps to anyone who can help me out with this.

EDIT: Never mind…got it. Thanks to http://ms-judy-ts.xanga.com/653513774/how-to-add-a-youtube-video-to-xanga/

As of now, I have a new sister-in-law. Congratulations to my little brother and his new wife.

Last week I purchased Armin Van Buuren’s album, A State of Trance 2008. It arrived in the mail yesterday. I purchased it because of one song and the artist who wrote it; Time to Rest by Andy Blueman.

Andy Blueman was known, once upon a time, as XeeGee. A long time ago I found a site called MP3.com.au and a LOT of great music by a lot of great artists whom, I believe, made music for the love of it. Sure some of them wanted to be ‘discovered’ and make the big money one day, but most everyone just plain loved making music and garnering a small fan base who enjoyed what they produced. Then in 2003 I stumbled an artist who went by the name XeeGee. I still don’t know how that is pronounced by perhaps that no longer matters. Anyway, this artist had around ten or so songs available for free download and I got them all. Phendrana Drifts and Open Your Eyes were, by far, my favorites, but the rest were pretty good too. I instantly knew this artist had a future in the Trance buisness.

Then a couple years later I came across called CTGmusic.com. Strange name yes, but it stood for Cute Trance Girls. It’s funny though because I don’t believe there were very many women on that site. . This site was a Trance/Ambient lover’s paradise. I downloaded so many songs and found so many gems it was unbelievable. I typically put songs I liked together on CD’s to listen to at work or while reading and during 2003 alone I made over 100 CD’s. Electronic Trancelation, Journey Through Trance, Technoholic. These names and others like them were names I came up with for CD series dedicated to the songs and artists found on the two sites I’ve mentioned and a few others. But back to the point. On CTG I found out that XeeGee was there under names(that changed quite often) like BeAndy, AndyB, Skyform, and now he is simple “/”. Ha ha. He’s about as eccentric as me I guess.

Because of a series of personal issues in my life, I left the internet for about four years and just recently purchased a new computer and am back. So I went to discover how all the old sites were doing. I had to unbury a whole slew of passwords in order to do so, which took a bit. CTG was one of these sites. Back in 2005 I actually made three songs of my own, which I still listen to but I never really got into the music-making buisness, just the listening and CD creating buisness. So I logged on and tried to find out about some of my favorite artists. One of them was XeeGee. Someone informed me that he went by Andy Blueman now and was discovered by Armin Van Buuren. I got excited for him and went to Amazon to see what I could find out. I found A State of Trance 2008 and Andy’s song was Time to Rest, number eleven on CD 2.

Great song, but it was a little tainted by the electric guitar. The guitar was played by Armin’s brother Eller, so I wonder what transpired in order to place electric guitar on a song by an artist who, to my knowledge, had never done that before. Was Blueman experimenting and Armin said, “My brother plays guitar, I’ll see if he’ll collaborate with you.” Or was it more like, “Hey Blueman, your song is nice, but it needs more so I’m having my brother perform some electric guitar. Sorry if you don’t like this but if you want to be on the album you have to accept the guitar. K Thx bye, Armin.” Who knows, but the XeeGee/Andy Blueman I remember would never have gone for an electric guitar on a trance track. Blah!

Also the CD? It was Armin’s A State of Trance 2008, but sounded much more like Tiesto’s In Search of Sunrise: Latin America or Los Angeles. If I wanted to listen to Tiesto I would have listene to Tiesto.

Anyways, these are my thoughts for now. Sorry if you don’t like long posts. .

-Shadowrunner81/Zanzibar

Yesterday I gave my Mom her birthday gift, a new short story called Finding Bigfoot based on the Animal Planet television series of the same name we enjoy watching. She liked it, I got a hug out of it, and that’s all I need. If anyone wants to read it just comment or email me. It’s in Word format. 10 pages, 3600 or so words.

Have a good one,

Shadowrunner

I get a daily devotion from my Dad. Here is today’s that I thought I’d post. I’ve found peace in my writing. Where do you find peace?

So where do we really find peace? Why is peace so elusive? I think it is because we look for peace in all the wrong places. Max Lucado helped me discover something yesterday that I had never given any thought to until now. What do you suppose the days were like before Jesus began His ministry? We know that he was the son of a carpenter, Joseph. He would certainly have learned the family trade. By then, he would have taken over the family business. In his little town of Nazareth, he would have had a comfortable lifestyle. Can you see him in his workshop each day, tending to his business? Can you seeing him caring for his mother and the household? It appeared he would have had a pretty good life.

Today, we would call this lifestyle living the American dream. Good home, nice family, good job. He had it all. Surely, in those circumstances, he would have had peace. You would think! Except for one thing, He was called to do something else. Jesus was not called to be a carpenter; he was called to go preach the Good News. Jesus had just heard that his cousin, John the Baptist, had been put in prison. The scripture says in Mathew 4 that Jesus departed to Galilee. And leaving Nazareth… I never saw those words before in what it meant for Jesus. Jesus had it all but God was calling Him to much more. He heard the voice of the Father and left all to fulfill His will.

We can have it all. We can be living the American dream and still have nothing, including peace. Peace does not come in comfortable circumstances. Peace comes not in being in the center of a good home, good family and good career. Peace comes in being in the center of the Father’s will. Whatever it is and wherever you are, the main question is, are you doing what the Father has called you to do? If not, peace will elude. Are you searching for peace in your heart? You will only find it in one place, in doing what God has called you to do. In using the gifts god has given you, in doing what you know is the good and right thing in your life. In obedience to the will of God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Jesus said this, speaking from His own personal experience. He left all for the Father. He had it all, but had nothing until He was fully aligned with what the will of the Father was for His life. How about you? Is your life in alignment with the will of God? Are you doing what God created you to do? If not, peace will elude. If so, peace will abide.

The last post was intended for the people who followed my page four or five years ago. I’m currently trying to correspond with one person, but haven’t heard from any of the others. I may contact them instead of passively waiting for them to contact me, but I’ll give them some more time to respond first.

This post is intended to say hello to the various other visitors who stopped by over the last week, saw my page, and left. Yeah the first post wasn’t really meant to get in contact with you, but this one is. If you feel you have an interesting site with interesting ideas and things to say, let me know through comments or by private message and I’m come check it out and see what you have going on.

This post is more or less a general feeler for Xanga as I browse around and get the feeling that it is dying. I’m not on facebook on purpose. I’m not on Twitter on purpose. Those two sites seem to be the only ones that are alive and vibrant. Sad isn’t it? If you agree with that definitely contact me.

Take Care,

Shadowrunner