Well, if for whatever reason, you feel like hearing me talk today at 2:00 PM EASTERN TIME, you can. The interview I did with Charley at CrossDriven Radio is airing today. I told Charley I would try to get more people to listen than my mom, so now you all can’t say you didn’t hear about it. Hopefully I didn’t say anything stupid, or if I did he edited it to make me sound super smart.

Seriously though, Charley was a cool guy to talk to and has already talked to several other really amazing people. Today along with talking to me Charley is talking to Amy, from “My Friend Amy”. The show will also be broken up into two podcasts that can be listened to here. So anyway, if you have some time today around 2:00 Eastern Time, go to WEBR and click the Listen Now button. Then come back here and let me know what you thought.

• My friend Phil has a special announcement over at his blog if you haven’t seen it yet.  There’s a lot more coming from him this week, but everything in due time.

• My friend Derek is launching an amazing new site today where artists can give away music and anyone with a website / blog / myspace ect, can also be a part of giving away great music.  It’s called NoiseTrade and will be launched some time today.

I think there might have been more announcements, but I forgot them in the forty minutes it has taken me to calm down the kids enough so I could think enough to type this.  So make sure you run over to Phil’s blog and check out his announcement and then check in on NoiseTrade and get some free music.  

So, a few weeks ago CoolDad over at “Are We Still Cool” asked if he could do an online interview with me on his fancy chat thing.  Seems like a pretty good idea to me.  I can do an interview without people actually looking at me and I get to use spell check.  I’m not sure what the Cool Parents are going to ask me but I’m prepared to bluff my way through anything.  

Seriously though.  If you are available tonight stop in at “Are We Still Cool” at 9:00 PM EST and say hi.  I think it’s going to start with a few questions from Cool Dad, and then turn into something a little more open. 

What’s a question you would ask if you were Cool Dad tonight.  What do you want to know about me?  I know a bunch of other folks have done this but, I’ll try to answer any questions you have here too.  

What are you “wondering”?

“China’s one-child policy created a generation of only children that numbers ninety million. One hundred nineteen baby boys born for every one hundred girls.

The number of unmarried young men - called bare branches - is predicted to be thirty million by 2020.

Forty-five percent of Chinese women surveyed say they do not want to give up their careers to get married.

Three in ten Chinese families have grandparents living in the same household.

China has the worlds highest number of annual deaths triggered by air pollution.

Sixty-seven percent of millionaires surveyed say they are sacrificing health for money.

China is expected to overtake the U.S. as the worlds largest economy in ten years.”

-National Geographic

Thoughts?

According to an article in Wired Magazine:

“Apple is under pressure from the four major labels to change its pricing model to a tiered pricing structure,” said Susan Kevorkian, an IDC audio analyst. “The way the labels are pressuring Apple is by withholding DRM-free downloads from the service … [while] cultivating other online music services, most notably Amazon’s MP3 downloads store.”

“If Apple tires of butting heads with the labels, it could eventually cut them out of at least part of the equation by forming its own record label to keep a portion of the estimated 65 cents it currently pays out to the labels for each song sold.”

And here’s the kicker of this whole shebang.

By 2012, digital music is projected to account for 40 percent of music sold, according to InStat. If Apple holds onto its current market share, it will account for more than one-quarter of all music sales by its ninth birthday. Not bad for freeware.

Are record labels in trouble if they mess with the beast that is Apple? Sounds to me like it’s time for artists to have a solid online presence more than ever. What do you think?

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It’s not that I have a ton to do in Nashville this week. It’s more that the people I am with have a ton to do and I am watching them do it. I got to Downtown around 3:00 yesterday and was basically running around and “hanging out” until about 1:00 in the morning. It really is fun to continually be bumping into people that I haven’t seen in a long time and that happened all day yesterday.

I was able to meet two “blog friends”, and talk to them a while even though our conversations seemed to get interrupted every five minutes. First I ran into Hannah and talked with her a bit about her new job prospects here in Music City.  She’s on to something good and has a lot to talk about over at her blog. Then a little while later at MercyMe’s sound check I was able to sit down with Dale for a little while.  Dale works in radio and I always have a hard time following what those guys do.  They seem like they are always busy and always working, but Dale is doing great documenting the week over at his blog so make sure you stop in and say hey to him.

Today I head back up there to catch Phil play a showcase and then hopefully see a little bit of the Third Day / Switchfoot show.  Most likely there will be more running around, but I’m having a good time seeing everyone.  I will try to get some pictures today.  I was lazy yesterday.

On a work related note, MercyMe has a hot new blog layout, so check that out.  They are also documenting this week like crazy, so there will more coming from them.  Also, Natalie is now on Twitter so make sure to follow her there.  She hasn’t updated it yet, but I am going to try to meet up with her today to get her going on that.  I am also occasionally updating my Twitter so you can check that out there.  I think that’s it for now.  Talk to you soon.

I don’t have meetings often but it seems like when I have them, they all fall around the same time. I kind of like it that way. I like to be in that mindset. Today is one of those days. I have three meetings and I’m looking forward to each one.

The first is at ten o’clock with the folks over at INO Records.  Since I work with a handful of their artists, it’s important that we hang out every once in a while.  Plus it’s cool to hear what they are up to and I know they want to know what this blogging thing is up to.

After that I have a meeting at noon about the company. At this point it’s un-officially called “The Company”. It has a name, but we are still working on getting all the legal stuff in order, hence the meeting. We are getting close though. Once all these ducks are in a row, we can move forward a little better. A good meeting to have.

Then at two o’clock I am meeting with the blogfather himself.  Randy and Spence are facilitating an event called LifeWork 2.0 and I am excited to hear what Randy has to say about all of that.  Not to mention we haven’t ever really hung out so what do you do when you want to hang out with someone in this area and industry?  You go to coffee.  

So there’s my day in a nutshell. What’s your friday look like?

I’m sitting at the airport waiting to board my flight to Atlanta, then eventually Southern California, watching CNN on the screen in the boarding area. Obviously the majority of the talk is about the presidential race, sprinkled with the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr..

Naturally the brilliant minds at CNN have connected the two pointing out that the movement that Martin Luther King Jr. started so long ago has made way for there to be an African American on the ballot for Presidency. I can connect that also, and think that there is absolutely some legitimacy to that. Way to go CNN. Then they put up this poll. A poll that asked Americans if “America is ready for an African American President”. The result? Are you ready for this? 48% say “Yes”, America is ready for an African American President. What’s that leave? 52%. Fifty. Two. Percent! 52% say “No”, America is not ready for an African American President. What?!! Seriously?

I don’t really understand racism. I have never understood it, but do you think America and CNN are focussing too much on pointing out that an African American is running for President? Is it perpetuating the focus of racism in America pointing it out over and over? Not to mention putting out polls like that? What do you think?

I gotta go.

Kristin and I had plans to head to Atlanta this morning. With Winter Jam going on down there, the guys in MercyMe were planning on doing some stuff during the day that I was going to go down and take pictures at. Obviously with the crazy storms down there last night, we not only aren’t going but there isn’t much going on down there.

We have a bunch of friends down there especially since the tour stop was there tonight, so be sure to pray for everyone down there affected.

I’m not sure if any of you have heard, but Third Day as a band and their guitarist Brad Avery have decided to part ways.

Third Days site reads:

Third Day and Brad Avery have made the very difficult decision to part ways.

We appreciate Brad’s many contributions to the band’s career to date, including his work on our forthcoming album, but the time has come for us to follow our separate paths.

He has been an important part of Third Day for the last 13 years as we’ve traveled the world together and performed over 1,000 concerts. We will miss him as a band member but he will always remain our brother and our friend. Brad is a wonderful person, gifted songwriter and talented musician. We trust that God has amazing plans for his future.

Brad is a great guy and an amazing guitar player. We we able to hang out quite a bit a few years ago when I was out with them. Hopefully this means that he will be doing some solo stuff in the future. Best of luck to both him and the band as they are going through this change.