I don’t purchase a lot of music. I’m mostly into sports radio and…. well, sports radio. But I’ve been tracking a friend of mine who had a chance to release his first CD. His name is Caleb Delamont.

Entitled “Prayer of the Saints“, it’s a view into the mind of a young man who’s wrestled with issues of deep faith at a young age. From his own website, his desire is that his music might “encourage people to make changes in their lives and then make a difference in the world.”

The album is inspiring, from the moment you take it out of the packaging and place it in the CD player to when it spins down from the final track. Every track has a style that is distinct. I find it hard to describe what it would be similar to, because it really is unique. Most of all, it’s the depth of the songwriting that has impressed me the most. The first track, Fool, describes a journey from fear to faith with a tagline that explodes: “I’m a fool already, just make me a fool for You.”

Well done Caleb! The only downside was how you spelled “Brian French” in the album liner. “Bryan” is just wrong! (Of course, you may be refererring to another Bryan French, in which case, just ignore these last lines.)

3 words: Buy this album. It’s available at the link above or on iTunes (click on the iTunes button below; can’t be simpler than that!)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Recently I acquired a new Verizon phone. It was one of those chocolate ones that can play music, etc etc…. It was working very well, and I was enjoying using the camera and music to do what most proud papas do…. take pictures of Josh.

Well, all of a sudden, the battery would only hold a 6 hour charge. I had been running bluetooth and the “location always on” setting for a few weeks before, so I assumed that it wasn’t the problem. I assumed that my battery had received a memory imprint that wouldn’t let it charge fully even though it looked like it did.

Anyways, after a week of playing with it, I finally took it to the local Verizon store. After a full 1.5 hour wait for a 20 minute job (way to go part timers who wanted to talk to each other!), I got a new battery. Guess what? SAME PROBLEM!

I was ready to ask for a new phone. No, not ask. DEMAND a new phone! However, in the process of my ranting, I discovered the problem: it was the microSD card. I had taken some pictures of Josh and saved them to my microSD card. One of them was a quality photo (moreso than the rest of my photogenic progeny) and I set it to be my wallpaper (the default background of the phone). It turns out that when I took the card out overnight, the battery usage returned to normal. I don’t have a scientific paper to back up my findings, but I believe that if you use a picture as your wallpaper when it is stored on your microSD storage card, it will drain your battery faster.

That’s pretty poor coding, but I’m glad to have figured out the problem. I wonder if Verizon has a software firmware upgrade to fix it….