Colorful Hat Pictures!

I finally got my pictures from the Colorful Hat tour online. You can find them all on my picasawebsite. There are two albums posted, one has all the photos I took from the whole week, the good & the bad, and the other has just the one's I liked. I was a little disappointed by how few of the pics came out well, but I guess I couldn't really expect much better considering 90% of them were taken from FOH in very low light conditions. Anyway, here they are...

Chicago - Take 2

I'm back in Chicago again. I flew up here on Wednesday and I'll be here until next Wednesday. So far this trip has been far more enjoyable than the last trip. The work is pretty bland, but I have been making good use of my free time. Two nights ago I went to see Wicked and then last night I saw Jersey Boys. Both musicals were a lot fun and very much worth my time and money. The Jersey Boys production was so enjoyable that I immediately went back to the hotel and downloaded some music by The Four Seasons.

After both plays I spent some time thinking that I might enjoy working Broadway productions at some point in my career. I did find it interesting that the quality of the audio at both theaters was below my expectations. Note that I didn't say it was "bad," just not as good as I would expect it to be for such a large production. I frequently had trouble hearing and understanding the dialogue at both productions, although at the Jersey Boys production I was also alternately blown out of my seat by a few solos from the lead singer. I have to take into account that the challenges in reinforcing theatrical productions vary from those involved with concert productions, but that is part of the reason why I am interested in trying it. Another complication is that unfortunately most Broadway Productions are locked in to some extremely strict union contracts. I'm not a union worker, nor do I plan to be, so I guess I will just have to find some other way in. So who knows, maybe one day I'll find a fun job working with a Broadway production, I think that would be cool.

I'm going to upload some pictures when I have a chance. I've taken some really fun shots of the city during my walks around downtown.

New Pictures!

I uploaded some new pictures from the New Attitude Conference. 

View Album

Get your own

I really need to get some fresh air!

Today I'm working a conference in Orlando, FL. It is currently a sunny 77 degrees outside, I am staying at a resort with a wonderful pool, as pictured here, (My camera died before I was able to get a good picture of it, so this one I stole from Google Maps) and I am not allowed to enjoy any of the wonderful surroundings. Instead, I am stuck inside a medium sized ballroom listening to sales meetings for a large medical research company. Wow, boring. During our last break I took a walk outside and discovered that it is the perfect weather to be outside sitting by the pool sipping, beverages... Oh well, perhaps later.

I did get some nice pictures of the hotel and convention center before my battery died and I uploaded all of them here.

Radnor Lake Fun

Last week was perfect Nashville weather, the sun was out but it wasn't hot, there was a little rain but not enough to cause problems and just enough to create a cool breeze. That kind of weather inspires me to get outside in God's creation and just enjoy the beauty, so on several days I went down to Radnor Lake to go hiking. I really enjoy that place, I'm sorry that I didn't make use of it more in college but I'm making up for it now. On one day in particular, I came in contact with a lot of wildlife, it all started when just as I started hiking, as I was rocking out with my iPod I wasn't really paying attention to what was in front of me, then I almost stepped on this:

From Radnor Lake

So, that freaked me out a bit. I don't know a thing about snakes so I don't know if this one is poisonous or dangerous at all, but I decided to avoid it nonetheless. Another couple miles down the trail and I came across several deer as they were just chilling out in the woods. One of them was eating just a few feet off the trail I was on. It was a pretty cool moment, I'm not sure I've ever been that close to a deer outside of a zoo before. As I approached it never left and I was able to take some fun pictures.

From Radnor Lake

From Radnor Lake

And lastly I took this picture of some turtles, I didn't know they like to get together like this, but I saw several different groups of them huddled on logs throughout the lake.

From Radnor Lake

If you would like to see the rest of the picture from the hike you can see them on my picasa page at http://picasaweb.google.com/dtmmedia

Radnor Lake

Google Maps starting to get a little creepy...

So today I was looking playing around with the "street view" feature in Google maps. I have to say, it's amazing how evolved this thing is getting. Not only can I find my apartment, but my car is parked out front. I remember the days when I flipped out over the fact I could find a picture of my house taken from some satellite a bazillion miles a way, but this, this is just insane.

I'll admit, I love the Google as much as the next guy, but I do start to wonder sometimes if there should be a point where we say that the endless availability of information should be limited. I don't guess I really have a problem with Google wanting to have somebody drive down my street taking pictures of what it looks like, but my question is, will it stop there? Exactly where should we draw a line that says what information should be available for everyone and what shouldn't?

Wait, snow? Where am I?

So I had to rethink where I was this morning. I was pretty sure that I flew back from Denver the other day, but when I stepped outside this morning, it felt more like Denver than Nashville. And it's snowing! and some of it is actually staying on the ground, who'd of thought? On the flip side, the roads are a predictable disaster, people here just completely freak out whenever anything frozen hits the road. I was amazed to find out that some of the schools have decided to remain open though, I guess you just never know. Here are some pics from my trip. I'll get the pics from San Diego up shortly...

From Breckenridge ...

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Well, lots of new things to update! SHOUTfest 07 has officially come to an end. It was a great experience and I hope that I get to do it again next year. This video is a little tour of the SHOUTfest crew and bus...



Right now I'm in NC with Laura's family for the Thanksgiving weekend. I'll update a little more about what's been going on here later.

Great night...Great picture!

Tonight's show went really well. I"m pretty tired so I think I'll hit my bunk soon, but I wanted to post a great little picture I snapped this afternoon. Brad, one of the guitar players in The Afters fell over on stage during his set and I got a great shot of him on the floor. It cracked me up, so here ya go:

From SHOUTfest 07

Goodnight
dtm

Our first fire!, and changes at church...

Last night Laura and I had our first fire in my new fireplace!!! I'm not sure if it's really all as exciting as I am making it out to be, but it got me pretty pumped up. I remember back to when I was growing up, one of my favorite activities every year was getting to help my dad build fires in the fireplace and then sit back to watch a movie or something with the fire going. Ahhh, good times... So last night it finally got cold enough (I think it was like 55F outside, which was cold enough for me) so we had a quick little fire, it was just one of those logs you can buy at Kroger for like $1.75, but it was good enough. We turned off the lights, sat on the couch, poured a glass of wine, and watched Evan Almighty; it was a great evening.

From Random Stuff ...

So that was the really exciting part of the evening for me, but I should also mention that before coming home to do the fire thing we had a great community group meeting. Our group is just starting to get to the stage where most of us know each other well enough to at least start discussing how we personally feel about different issues. This is great because our church is currently going through a time of major decision-making. Over the past few months the church staff has more formally begun leading the church in a discussion about where God wants us to go from here. For those of you who don't know, my church (Rolling Hills Community Church) does not own a facility of any kind. We meet on Sunday mornings at the Thoroughbred Cinemas in Cool Springs and we rent a small office space in a business complex for the staff to work in during the week. This situation has worked wonderfully for us for some time, but lately God has been leading many in the church to the idea that we need to prepare for growth. On the one hand, the prospect of having a facility that we as a church can call "home" sounds great and would open up many doors for us to expand our outreach into the community, however, there are many people, including myself, who are still very skeptical because we fear that pursuing this might take away from the community we have at our church. As we are now, we are constantly reminded that our church is not a building, it is a community of believers in pursuit after Christ, and we want to stay that way. We fear that by attaching ourselves to a facility we may lose that reminder and the community will change.

Although I haven't personally heard him say this, some have quoted our pastor as saying that, "Nashville does not need another big church" and I completely agree, I know of at least two 1000+ member churches within two miles of my apartment, there are dozens of others in Nashville, we don't need yet another. What Nashville does need desperately is a group of believers who are interested in changing this city for Christ, and that is what I think most members and attendees of RHCC view our church as. That is why some of us are concerned about what is going on, and we had a great opportunity last night do discuss how we felt about the issue. Although I personally did not feel led to participate in the discussion much, I appreciated what the others had to say.

Anyway, to try to wrap this up, I am very excited about what God is doing in our church. I don't want to give off the false impression that I am adamantly opposed to us building or buying an existing facility; I just don't want our church to become centered around it. I want to make sure that whatever we do is in God's plan and in his timing. I also take great comfort in knowing that our Pastor, Jeff Simmons, and the leadership teams are followers of the Spirit (much more so than I can claim to be) and that in whatever direction they do choose to lead us in, it will be the result of prayer, wise counsel, and the leading of the Spirit. It's a very exciting time for Rolling Hills! =)

DTM

Oh yeah, I also posted some new pictures from last weekend:

From SHOUTfest 07 ...

New Pics!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I have some new pics from the SHOUTfest 07 tour! check them out: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/dtmmedia

dtm

New Community Groups!

So Laura and I went to the first meeting of our new community group last night and it was great! Even though our group this year is a little bit bigger than our group was last year, I still think we have a great group of people and I'm looking forward to getting to know them. On a side note, I think it's cool how in Nashville I just constantly run into people who are in some way involved in the music industry, almost half of my community group is some how involved. On Sunday, our pastor started a new series on Colossians, so I think that is what we are going to be talking about in community groups for a while. I guess I'm going to have to be more diligent about keeping up with the podcasts since I can't be at church on Sunday mornings this fall.

On that note, I have some new pictures up from this past weekend in Lawrencburg, Indiana.

From SHOUTfest '07...

This show was actually setup at the base of a ski slope at the Perfect North ski resort. It was a bit foggy that day, but we still had a good show.

Wow, it's been a long time...

Hey everyone, i'm sorry it's been so long since i've posted. A lot has been going on and I am going to try to start posting updates more often. Also, I just got a new digital camera, so I will hopefully have the new addition of photo's!

Spring Break Pictures

Well I'm back in Nashville now and am trying to get back into the routine of thins. It's hard to believe that I only have another 8 weeks of school left. Wow, even typing makes my stomach queasy. At this point it's not so much fear of what will happen after graduation, as much as getting to graduation. I just want to make it there, I'll worry about what happens next after it's all said and done.

On a lighter note, my last Spring Break was a blast. Micah and I got back from Panama City on Wednesday evening after a great long weekend with Chris and his friends Derek and Bethany. We had hoped to spend more time at the beach doing typical spring break stuff I guess, but since it was so chilly while we were there we decided to spend most of our time just hanging out. We still had a lot of fun with everything from the Wii to Chris's potato gun. I just got most of the pictures posted up on my picasaweb page today so you can go check them out.



until next time...

A Great First Day of Skiing

Well I'm very glad to report that today was my first day on the slopes this year here in Breckenridge, CO; and it was fantastic! It snowed most of the day so visibility was down, but having the fresh powder on the ground made the slopes almost perfect.



Laura was able to come up for the weekend this year so that has made the trip extra good for me. I was a bit worried about how she might do on the slopes considering that she hasn't skied in almost eight years, but I was blown away by how well she did =)

Today was also special because we were able to meet up with some of my friends from Nashville, Jeff and Katherine Jones and their two kids Matthew and Mia. I've been telling Jeff and Katherine that they should visit Breckenridge for years now and so this year they decided to take a trip up here, but neither of us had any idea that they scheduled their trip on a weekend that would overlap my stay here. Once we realized



that we were going to be up here during the same weekend my step-mom, Carol, offered to watch their kids for them on Saturday so we could all go skiing together. After a good day of skiing we came back to the condo, played with Matthew and Mia, ate dinner and just hung out. Not a bad start for a vacation, I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Pictures from PA trip...

I uploaded some new pictures from our weekend trip to PA. You can check them out here.