No Greater Sacrifice

Today I witnessed one of the most heartbreaking scenes I have seen in a long time. I watched as a young soldier, one of four on our flight today, said goodbye to his family as he boarded the plane. The whole scene caught me very off-guard, I was just doing my usual thing at the airport, headed for my gate, but as I arrived I caught a glimpse of this young man's face as I scanned the area for a place to sit. At first I just looked away, I did not want to watch, but yet I kept looking back. The sheer agony on his face, the way he held his wife and looked at his two sons (I'm guessing they were around two and four) was almost more than I could take just watching. As they called for the final groups to board, I saw him draw them close for one final embrace and as he held the younger son in his left arm, he wrapped his right arm around his wife and the older one hugged his leg. Her face exhibited a somber strength, no doubt the strength she will need until he returns and his face showed sheer agony, pure and simple. I don't know that I'll ever understand the emotions I was witnessing (I pray I never do), but my appreciation for our soldiers and their families changed today.

PS - During the short trip the flight crew acknowledged the presence of the soldiers and told us that they are all headed to Iraq. I pray God keeps them safe and they can return soon.

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...

Back from the circus...

Well I'm back from the circus. That's right, for those of you who missed it, last week I was on tour with a small circus called the The Colorful Hat. It was actually a lot of fun, the whole thing is owned and produced by a friend of mine who I toured with last fall, so that's how I got involved with it. It's a small production that is still in the getting started phase but we still played 5 cities in 7 days. Now the first question I am always asked is if there are animals in the show, and the answer is no (although we have been considering the addition of an emu, but that's another story). The show is a theatrical performance that includes music, comedy, juggling routines, and various acrobatic acts. I took a lot of pictures and I am trying to sort through them all before I post them, but soon I will have some images up.

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.

Fun in Louisville...

The New Attitude conference is going well. Josh Harris and Don Piper are two of the more notable speakers. The band is a church worship team and they have a pretty decent sound. 
Most of them aren't "pros," but they work well with each other and put on a solid performance. They're some of the most humble musicians I've ever worked with.

Sometimes we audio people can become a little too discriminating towards worship bands that don't live up to our "professional" standards. But really, I think that's usually a load of crap. I mean, that doesn't mean that having a solid band isn't important, but we often will be overly critical (among ourselves) of bands that really are doing a fine job, but just lack that cohesiveness that distinguishes a "professional" act. This of course brings up the whole discussion on how important a good production is to a church service. 

There are two valid but opposing arguments. Some will point to Scripture and say that we are to do everything we do with "excellence," and therefore we should make our services as polished and professional as possible. On the opposite side there is the argument that since a Church service is not there for entertainment and the focus should not be the production, if the production quality lags, it is not a big deal as long as everyone is doing there best and "doing all for the glory of God." 

About a year and a half ago when I was visiting churches in search of a new home I thought about this a lot as I visited a variety of different churches. The conclusion I came to is that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I reject the idea that churches who lack the resources to put on a large scale production are some how sub-standard. I also reject the idea that growing the churches production capabilities should be the highest priority. Music is important, and it is certainly true that a terrible band and a service that is disorganized can turn off a lot of new comers, but we must do all in God's timing and with his leading. I appreciate a well thought out service and a well rehearsed band, but it should not make or break my worship experience.

When I started writing this I didn't intend to talk about that, I guess it's just been in my head some today.

New Attitude Anyone?

So I just arrived here in Louisville, KY for the New Attitude conference. Our hotel room is pretty nice. I'm sharing a room w/ Mike, but it's a pretty large suite so we have plenty of room to spread out. Load in doesn't start until tomorrow, so I need to find something fun to do tonight. I'm thinking about going to see the new Indiana Jones movie, any ideas?

Hotel de jure

Here are some pics of the hotel I'm at this week:

Fun Times in Denver

If you're ever in Denver check this place out, Vesta Dipping Grill. I recommend the Beef Tenderloin, it's amazing.

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.

Traveling fun...

I've been traveling a fair amount lately. As I write this I'm sitting in the Denver airport waiting on my delayed flight, apparently the sky is falling in TN right now and that is affecting my flight. As long as I get home tonight then I should be fine, getting stuck here tonight would not be fun because I have to turn around and head right back out on Sunday. Anyway, enough of that.

I've been learning a lot about myself lately. It's been very worthwhile to spend some time thinking about what I like, what I'm passionate about, and what I want to do with the limited time I have been given. Turning these idea's into goals and then applying some planning to them has helped to give me a lot of direction in life. Even if I haven't achieved all my goals in 10 years, at least I will have spent the time with a purpose, instead of just drifting through my life walking through whatever doors happen to be open at the time.

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 ...

CA, party shuffle, and other good times...

So it's been a while since I've felt the motivation to post anything. I don't really have any new fun pictures to post, but I should have some cool stuff next week. This Friday I'll be flying out to San Diego, CA for a corporate gig and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.

This business is so weird sometimes, even though these corporate gigs are soooo much easier and require half the skills necessary to put on a decent concert, they pay like 2x as much and give the tech staff perks that are better than what most of the bands get in the Christian music industry. Keeping in mind that on this trip I'm just a low-level tech guy, I'll be getting computers connected to projectors, setting up screens, taping cables, etc.., they're putting me up in my own room in a hotel that goes for about $300 a night. Out of discretion I won't give any more specifics about perks or pay, but I just wanted to make the point that it's insane how different this stuff is from the entertainment industry. It also explains a lot about why most of the people I have met who specialize in corporate are so arrogant, they're used to getting treated like rock stars for doing a job that I could train most freshman at Belmont to do in a few hours. Fortunately all the people I have met so far that will be going on this trip seem pretty cool. Hopefully I get some good pics of the city while I'm there and will have lots of fun stories when I get back.

On an unrelated note, I love the Party Shuffle feature in iTunes. You can tell so much about a person's personality by just turning on Party Shuffle in their iTunes and seeing what pops up, even your own! I tend to forget about how much really old school christian rock I own that really shaped my tastes in music growing up. A few minutes ago I was writing with the background music of some Newsboys from the Going Public album, now I'm listening to P.O.D. and it looks like John Mayer is up next, it's just a great thing.

until next time...
dtm

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I'll be heading back to Dallas tomorrow evening for a two week stay so I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends from home. Call be me if you want to hang out.

Update from Laura

Hey everyone,

Laura's Ecuador mission's team has blog that they have been periodically updating. Yesterday Laura wrote the post so if you are interested you can see it at: http://rhccinecuador.blogspot.com/2007/11/thursday.html

Right now I'm on the bus with the SHOUTfest crew as we're on our way to West Palm Beach, FL (something like a 16 hour drive on the bus), so we've got lot's of games and movies. On a side note, I've been reading a book lately called Too Small To Ignore by Dr. Wesley Stafford that has been very thought provoking. I think I'll be working on a post where I'll try to outline some of what I've been learning.

I also got some cool pictures of The Afters at our last show:

From SHOUTfest 07

From SHOUTfest 07

And this one is Pillar...

From SHOUTfest 07

Until next time,
dtm

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

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.

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...

Fun Times in Panama City!

So Micah and I have been down here in Panama City since Friday night and we're having a great time. It's kind of funny because we really haven't done that much worth mentioning, but we've just been hanging out and having a great time. I've discovered that it's not always warm enough in Florida to go to the beach, I am terrible at Wii Tennis, and that guys (including guests) aren't allowed to bowl at the Pensacola Christian College bowling alley if they are wearing shorts. Today we're going to go the beach even though it's still like 65 degrees outside, then we'll probably just come back and hang out some more, maybe shoot the potato gun, who knows? Anyway, I hope that everyone is having a good day, I'll post a better update later.

As Spring Break Approaches...

Wow, what a day yesterday was. Somehow I ended up having three major tests (one was a take home) in one day; under normal circumstance that might not be such an extraordinary occurrence, but it is for me considering that I only have three classes that give tests (I also have another 6 hours this semester, but 3 are for my thesis and 3 are an 8 week course that has not started yet). So my test average yesterday was 3 for 3, woo-hoo. Anyway, so that's enough about school.

Micah and I are going to be heading down to Florida on Friday for our very last Spring Break. A good friend of ours from freshman year lives down there now so we'll be crashing with him for a few days and just having a good time. Hopefully the weather will be warm enough to go the beach some, but if not, I' m sure we'll find something fun to do. Unfortunately I am planning on taking some work with me, my thesis is turning into a monster and I can't afford to take another week off, but it won't be too bad.

Well, I hope that everyone else is having a good semester. What are you going to be doing for Spring Break? (if you are so lucky to have one)

until next time...