Blog.

I ran across this post and the follow-up post and was deeply moved by her story. Here is a young woman (mid 20’s, I think, with a young child) that lost her husband in a tragic accident when his boat capsized in frigid waters in Oregon.  Looking back on the day when they were still searching for his body, she wrote these words:

my main prayer was, “Lord, help me to be okay with whatever you are giving me right now. Whether he is alive or with You, You are still good.” People were calling me all day long for updated information, and they would say things like, “Nate’s so strong. Strong men like him don’t just drown. He probably swam to shore and passed out or something…” And they would wait for me to agree with them, like I was going to give them the hope that the worst was not true. But instead, God completely flipped my heart to where I was just telling them, “Whether Nate is alive or dead right now, God is still good. God is still good.”

That, my friends, is what a genuine relationship with Christ looks like.

My wife was nice to me and let me buy a new guitar this Christmas, and I thought I would do a small review here…

After much deliberation and playing of every guitar in the place, the Takamine TAN16C won out and made its way home with me. There were only two other guitars in the place that I liked better, one a Martin 000-18 Golden Era (unbelievable tone) and the other a Taylor 914CE, both incredible guitars, but both almost 3 times the price of the Takamine. My first guitar was a (now 18 years old) Takamine EF341 (the link has the cutaway version) that was bought at a pawn shop, and it has held up wonderfully over the years. In my opinion, Takamine has unbelievable quality for incredible prices.

This guitar has a very open warm sound, much richer and fuller than the EF341, and is able to fill up most small rooms with ease acoustically, which is nice when you’re just jamming with friends, or doing a laid back acoustic worship session in a living room. The playability is definitely top notch and very fast, with low enough action to play easily throughout the entire fretboard, but not too low to produce buzzing. It has a split saddle, which really helps with superb intonation throughout the range of the guitar, and a peg-less bridge, which makes restringing the guitar a little bit easier.

The electronics are definitely unique, as it employs Takamine’s CTP-1 Cool Tube pickup system. There is an actual tube (a 12AU7 dual triode) inline with the EQ that can be fed into the mix with the equalizer, which gives it a very nice warmth and openness to the sound when plugged in. I recorded a quick demo to give you an idea of how much ambiance the tube gives to the sound of the guitar. I recorded two takes of these songs, (one with the tube, one without) then mixed them together so that it switches between the two every few measures in the song. Each time it starts without the tube, then alternates until the end of the song. The second song on the last “dust in the wind…” part of the chorus has both tracks mixed together. Check it out here. Takamine has a few more demonstrations on their site, played by guys much better than me if you want to check that out.

Here are the pics: