it's all about love

i'm blogging from my phone because i'm laying in my bunk and we don't have internet on the bus...

also, you can skip this blog if you're looking for something funny.

i've been thinking a lot recently about who i am and who i'm becoming. as i was updating my facebook status so that it said, "is excited to see some old friends and hoping they feel the same way", my first thought was that i was going to be made fun of for it. by one set of friends for being sappy and emotionally needy, and by another set for indirectly name-dropping because the old friends are from a band i used to work for. well to both sets i say - do your worst. i am coming to grips with the fact that despite trying not to, i do really care about what people think of me. and the couple of months that i spent traveling with that group contain some of my greatest memories.

i am also learning about myself that i genuinely care for most of the people i work for and with on the road. sure, a lot of times it's my job to make their life easier, but i am sure i could find another job. i just really like to serve other people, and i think that's a tangible outpouring of my love for them. so i guess i love to love people.

so you can make fun of me for my facebook status or for the soul bearing mush i just spent entirely too long typing on my phone when i should be sleeping.... but i feel like it's time for me to embrace what i've been created to do, and i believe that is to love people.

church recording

about a year and a half ago, my pastor and i were pushing for a contemporary service to be started at our church. in the discussions of who we could get to lead worship for us, there were two very clear favorites. chris smith (who will surely be blogged about another day) and hilary west. both were friends of mine from church camp, who are unbelievable talented.

i had the pleasure of recording hilary with another friend a few years ago, and we've been talking about recording some songs of our "praise band" so that we can introduce new people to "contemporary" music in church -- unheard of in many southern lutheran churches. one day after being more blown away than usual by the talent of ms hilary west i was reminding them that we needed to do some recording, and she said she had a song that she wanted to record.

today was the day. i hauled all my gear to church, and set it up for a quick hour and a half session, during which hilary amazed us and, in her ever-humble way, apologized for it being bad... which i am pretty sure she isn't capable of.

one thing she is, however, is quite gullible. we turned a few chairs on their sides and stacked them up to create a make-shift vocal booth for her to sing in, and then the aforementioned chris smith informed her that in order to achieve the best sound possible, she needed to wear a choir robe...

sorry hilary. it had to be shared.

my newest hobby

this post has been edited for errors. thanks to marsha for pointing out my mistakes.

is disc golf. i played once a few years ago, but for whatever reason didn't really get into it. i played again a couple of months ago and really liked it. it's much cheaper than playing regular golf -- i went and bought a few discs and a bag, for a total of about $50 - which is about two rounds of regular golf at a good course. and you don't even have to pay greens fees to play disc golf!

well, both of my parents are retired now, which means that i have someone to play with during the week when the rest of my friends are at work. my parents made fun of me for having a bag and being organized with my discs the first time we played. the second time we played i was reminded of how funny my parents really are. as we were about to head to the first tee, my dad pulled a cooler out. i thought, "great, they brought drinks"... i was informed that it wasn't a cooler.


it was their bag of discs. they had put all the old frisbees at the house into a cooler! there was a juice bars frisbee, a wheaties frisbee, a bellsouth frisbee, a nashville sounds frisbee, and even a soft a floppy mickey mouse frisbee (which i was informed was the putter since it wouldn't bounce of the chains as bad -- brilliant!) they were so committed to this joke that they played the first 3 holes with their frisbees, even though my discs were at least doubling their drives.

so to my parents - you get an A for hilarity and an A+ for commitment to the joke. top-notch work!

i love sharpies

just in case you can't read the little note on the side of the box there -- it says, "i just went through the washer and dryer!" and it's no lie. i kept hearing a lot of clanking in the dryer, and when i went to investigate, i found the sharpie shown above. it had already made it through the entire wash cycle and the clothes surrounding it in the dryer were very close to being done as well. but that sharpie shows no signs of being anything but as perfect as the day it was made. every time i think that there is no way i can love sharpies more, i am proven wrong by a miracle such as surviving the laundry.

free tunes!

a few months ago, i was walking out of my apartment on my way to a bus call and i heard a guy yell, "world vision!" it took me a few seconds to realize that i was wearing my world vision track jacket, which turns out to be quite a conversation starter. well the guy who had hollered to me and i started talking, and it turns out that i work for musicians who support world vision and his wife and he are musicians that support world vision. and they are good! i checked out their latest two albums, and i just got an email from him informing me that they are following in the footsteps of radiohead and derek webb, and giving away her newest album!! do yourself a favor and check it out - but hurry, you only have until november 1st.

just me and God

i'm in alaska to do a couple of shows with the band i'm working for (i love my job). today me and a couple of the guys from the crew and band left anchorage and went driving down interstate 1. at first i was mad that they made me drive, but after seeing the incredible views and being able to see out of the windshield instead of just a little side window, i was glad. our destination was a national park just outside the town of whittier to see a glacier.

i hiked up on the glacier, and you can see how far by how small the people are in the picture above. looking the other way the view was -

i don't talk much about my faith here in the ole' blog. but after today, i'm going to have to say just a couple of words. when i got up to the place where i was taking these pictures, and looking up toward the glacier and mountains, i could not see, hear, smell, etc. anything that wasn't God's creation. and i was not even minuscule in comparison to my surroundings. it was an unbelievably humbling moment. i tried to come up with some song or hymn to sing to myself, but nothing seemed appropriate. finally i just ended up kneeling down and whispering a quiet prayer of thanks. thanks for the opportunity to be present in that situation. thanks that in those moments i was in the presence of the Creator and felt completely fulfilled and wanted nothing but for the moment to last just a bit longer.

on the way to alaska

a few funny things happened. first, while we're waiting on our delayed flight in minneapolis on an airline that shall remain unnamed, i noticed that there was an outlet way out of reach. that's it in the top right corner above the logo of the airline that will remain unnamed.


well after we finally got on the plane, we started our nearly 6 hour flight to anchorage. i finished a book i was reading, napped a little and then decided to watch one of the movies i had rented on itunes. sticking with the theme of "ah, crap"-ness of the day, my computer died about halfway through. luckily for me i was sitting in a bulkhead exit row (even though i was supposed to be in a regular exit row (stupid unnamed airlines). and right across the aisle from me i saw an outlet! after checking with a flight attendant, i ran my power cord through the aisle and resumed my movie. another flight attendant came by and told me that he thought it was a tripping hazard so........


yeah, i gaffed my cable down. how lucky that i packed a roll of gaff tape in a carry-on!

check out the crew blog to see how i recycled the tape after i finished the movie.

sometimes not having internet is great

like today. i finally finished writing the sermon that i'll be giving tomorrow. you may ask, "where did you go to avoid the internet?" well... i went to starbucks. not only did i not have internet, and therefore was able to focus; i also had some pretty rockin' coffee (pike's place + hazelnut + a bit of sugar + a splash of half and half = enough energy to keep going, but not so much that i get the shakies). well the fact that i just finished it today means i'll probably preach from the pulpit - code for read my sermon - for at least the first service.

positive post (not) tuesday

so i have a friend that fairly regularly posts a positive post tuesday blog. today was a pretty great day, and i feel compelled to share a few of the things that made it so.


if we speak technically, today started while i was still up from yesterday. katie logan had a large part in keeping me up that late. it's not every day i'm in atlanta and get to hang out.

after ending yesterday around 2 am today, i got up stupid early (7:15 am) to spend some time with a great friend of mine from high school who has moved to atlanta. even at such an early hour and after a long night, it was totally worth it to hang with christie conner. after getting back in bed for a couple more hours it was time for...


mmmmm... sushi at ru sans. even better that the sushi was the company.


i do love me some oxner girls. after lunch it was time to head home. my cell phone was almost dead, and that was just the excuse i needed to finally go buy the power inverter that i've been considering. well best buy didn't have one i liked and neither did radio shack. on the off-chance that atlanta played host to one of my new favorite places, i used the last of my cell phone battery to google -this place is like best buy on crack. they have everything that a nerd like me could want. i got a great power inverter and spent about an hour perusing cds, games, computer stuff, books, flashlights, dvds. i even found a roll of white electrical tape that the guys at home depot said i would never find. then i figured it was time to start the drive back home. i filled up with gas and picked up a few long drive essentials.


diet dew and sunflower seeds. the sunflower seeds are actually what spurred the positive post. look carefully - after 3 hours of almost continuous seed-munching i still have nearly a third of the $0.59 tube left. what a fantastic value!

today was a good day.