Special Music

  Practicing with the worship team on sooooo many songs recently with out Christmas Eve set, the New Years lock-in set and this last Sunday has been very satisfying and we've been hammering out a lot of good stuff but,  even with all that I've been enjoying playing some on the acoustic at home the most.  The other night my 4 year old was singing Joy To The World along with my guitar. That was just great fun to hear his little voice pick out the melody.  Both my boys are great fans of the song How Many Kings by Down Here and they provided some percussion backing for me late last week on that song. Corban was on the bongos and Josiah was doing a good imitation of Animal from the Muppets band with his little drum and sticks. Corban was really trying to keep the beat with my guitar and was hanging on pretty well. He's got a good sense of rhythm and you can catch him singing to himself quite often.  There's something very special about playing music with my kids...

Worthy of Mention...

• I scored a raging +3 on a certain blog's (Stuff Christians Like) worship leader rating sysetm...  I won't go into it deeply other than to say the only reason I rated at all is that I drink coffee and wear jeans on stage and rock a goatee (yes, I said rock). I  lost half of my points due to the brand of jeans that I wear.  I'm still not sure I qualify as a worship leader... still wrestling with that one.  (David Crowder scored a +7 but had to add his own questions to get his score up.)
• When I started playing electric guitar I was certain that I would not have a massive number of effects, but I'm up to 4 pedals now and thinking about more.  Most recent addition is an MXR Dyna-Comp, a very subtle effect and I'm using it more often than not.
• We are hip deep in Christmas musice... trying not to burn out.
• Here's a good David Crowder Interview
• Ever notice how God does have a plan and answers prayer.  His timing is perfect, I don't understand it, but it's perfect.

Ground Hog Day and other Random Thoughts

• There's something my crew at work has noticed lately...  at certain times it seems we are experiencing ground hog day,( like in the movie).  For all the world it feels like ground-hog day for us but not them. Every day seems to be a bright, shiny, new thing and we patiently wait for them to "re-experience" the world around them and ask the same questions they asked last week.What's even stranger, and to the credit of my crew, we aren't upset by this at all, rather we find it mildly amusing, perplexing, but amusing still..
• There seem to be vastly differing opinions circulating on the safety and efficacy of home-made scaffolding. I've heard several people this week discussing methods and tactics. I will leave you to your own judgement and personal level of "risk adverse-ness".
• Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Suess... I love this book... I paraphrase it a little when talking to my boys... such as "You've got what it takes, with your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet."  Not even a close second to Scripture, but there's some handy stuff in there...
• We need a different  blog label other than Random Thoughts. A cursory glance at Chaos theory and Fractal Geometry may lead us to believe there is no such thing as "Random"... (sorry kids.  I know "that's so not random" won't have the same ring to it.)  I just somehow knew that there was no such thing as luck.

Veterans Day...

Thanks to all the Veterans.  This day always brings a mixture of pride and sadness to my mind. My wife said it very well at http://alisa-thesweetlife.blogspot.com/

HandGolf

Yes, handgolf... It appears that it is a sport unique to NorthEast Kansas and that there may be only one course in existence. I'm proud to say I'm a course regular and took second place at this years Men's Retreat Tournament.

It is a game played by throwing softballs (preferably the dimpled kind used in pitching machines) on a 18 hole course similar to golf. You can knock the course out in 45 minutes or so with 3-4 players. Any of the snobbishness associated with regular golf absolutely goes up in smoke with the first "hurl" of the ball. There are very few rules but here's a quick shakedown:

• underhand throws only
• one foot must stay on the spot where the ball lands on all shots after teeing off.
• person with the fewest strokes/hurls win

You get the idea... golf without clubs, gadgets, expensive lessons, carts, or special shoes. There is a great deal of skill involved in "reading" the course and it's condition since it's only grooming is the kind of mowing regimen reserved for good pasture. Mole hills play a large factor in the longer holes. A good straight "hurl" can be instantly diverted turning a potential one under par into one over in the blink of an eye. Tree limbs can knock balls right out of the air adding 1-2 hurls to a hole since most holes are directly under trees.

Our game even has it's heroes and memorable moments like regular golf but is mostly an oral history at this point. ( Current rumor has Kyle Dolenski as course record holder.) I had thought at one point that formalizing the game would add to the fun but I'm not sure now... although I wouldn't mind a course closer to home. Maybe a 9 holer somewhere in the Dotte... you know just to keep the skill level up.

Worship!

I have been inspired once again to blog, that yes indeed, there is a need:

This last weekend my wife and I went to Tulsa to visit friends (our old worship minister) and to see David Crowder in concert. I was not only a great deal of fun and a great worship time, but a reminder of something that occurred to me not long after I was involved in worship at my home Church... which is that music, the amazing gift from God, is the bridge between what's between your ears and what thumps in your chest. It is a powerful thing indeed to balance the emotive with the intellectual in way that is more that the sum of its' parts. While I admittedly only possess moderate intellectual and musical skills; I am thankful that I am allowed to experience the process while playing (and occasionally singing) on stage. Ah... another unexplainable mystery that brings me to the point of awe and childlike glee.

A exuberant exclamation of praise is in order at this point... (I will leave you to your own devices and good judgement to accomplish such as you deem appropriate)

• Two things that seem to win no matter what the game is, rust and gravity.

• Rust: I decided to take some much needed time sprucing up the jeep. Not long after I bought it I replaced the mirrors with a type that attached to the body instead of the doors so that I could legally drive it with the doors off. Now rust has not only made the mirrors look lousy, but I can't get them off. I even came close to twisting one of the bolts off after a healthy dose of penetrating oil. The bumpers also need to be taken off and wirebrushed and painted. Not sure how to tackle the rust on the wheels...

• Gravity: Last week I was walking up the stairs on our deck and notice that there was a little more give than I was comfortable with. Upon further inspection something had caused two posts on the lower deck level to shift, allowing the stairs to be beaten by gravity. This will cause some major rework of the deck. I will get to use hydraulics jacks in the process (take that gravity). We have had thoughts of replacing the deck with something a little more useable, but hadn't planned on doing anything soon (ie, no plans to shell out the cash).

• Yesterday was the last day our rythm/acoustic guitar player would be able to play with us for quite a while. He is being deployed. Although I'll miss his guitar playing, I'll miss his desire to serve the LORD, his reliability and level headedness most...

• I've been looking for a new/used acoustic guitar and have been foolish enough to start looking before I saved up my money. So of course I've been finding several "perfect" guitars that I just can't afford yet which has caused considerable angst. In the mean time I've become an armchair expert on several "not quite vintage" Gibson, Guild and Mossman guitars but have only played a handful of Gibsons (all which carry astronomical price tags. Kansas City just isn't saturated with used guitars like someplace like Nashville for example. In fact there are so few that it may be worth my time and money to drive to Nashville and spend a day hitting all the guitar shops. If I had the money I could pick up whatever guitar I wanted, but with limited resources I have to be pretty picky. You see, in the 70s Gibson was bought by a company called Norlin. To a collector this started a dark era for the Gibson brand. For a player it has left a small group of guitars that are made in the same factory by the same people with the same quality materials and same (mostly) design that made those guitars great, but without the collector interest driving the price up. So... if you have an early 70's Kalamazoo made Gibson J45 or J50 with the big pickguard laying around let me know.

First Posting!

So... I thought I should my first post should be something paradigm shifting, provocative and entirely cool. That just isn't gonna happen this late on a Sunday. Sunday's are huge for my family and all that's happening at the homestead tonight is my wife relaxing on the couch recovering from a particularly busy weekend. The kids are asleep (the youngest fell asleep on the couch right after dinner)

This morning started with a fog drenched drive to open the church building and get things ready for an early practice with the rest of the worship team. Worship went great, the vocals were tight and the band played well. Our minister delivered the Word with the usual high marks for solid biblical doctrine and several familys went to eat lunch together to enjoy the company of friends from out of town (that I was pleased to have stay with us).

That's it! That's mostly what I'm about, God, Family, Friends and Music . I'm sure my blog won't stray too far from that... I'll save the paradigm shifting, provocative and cool for later.